CIT acquiring 10 more Airbus A330s
14 Jul 2012
CIT Aerospace, the leasing arm of global transportation finance leader CIT Group, has placed orders for 10 Airbus A330 aircraft, including the four ordered at the Farnborough International Air Show.
Five A330 aircraft were ordered earlier this year in conjunction with the cancellation of orders for four A320 family aircraft and the exercise of an aircraft purchase option. An agreement to acquire the additional five aircraft was entered into at the Air Show this morning. Deliveries are scheduled to begin in 2014, CIT said in a release.
''This order further expands our aircraft portfolio with one of the most popular widebody aircraft on the market today,'' said C Jeffrey Knittel, president of CIT Transportation Finance.
''CIT Aerospace is one of the largest lessors of A330s in the world and maintains one of the youngest, most fuel efficient fleets in the industry. This order will help us meet our customers' need for reliable aircraft and will provide them with the operating economics that they demand,'' he added.
''When a leading leasing company like CIT places a repeat order for our aircraft, we take that as a strong sign of customer satisfaction. The A330 is already the market's favorite long-range aircraft, but we don't stop there; we are continuously improving the A330 with, for example, new weight variants, which offer more payload-range capability. We look forward to seeing CIT's customers benefit from the A330 Family's high revenue generating potential thanks to its winning combination of unbeatable economics and continuous innovations,'' said Fabrice Brégier, president and chief executive of Airbus.
As of 31 March 2012, CIT owned or financed a fleet of more than 325 commercial aircraft, including 157 Airbus aircraft on operating lease. With this new order, the company now has a total order book of 162 aircraft scheduled for delivery through 2019, of which 89 are for Airbus aircraft.
CIT Aerospace provides financing solutions to a broad spectrum of the global aerospace value chain ranging from operators of commercial and business aircraft to manufacturers and suppliers in the aerospace and defense industries as well as financial institutions.
Aerospace giants Boeing Co and Airbus have reported orders valued around $52 billion at Farnborough Air Show, much less than the $94-billion worth of orders raked up at the Paris Air Show last year.
