Air Canada gets boost on jet sale, lease back

MONTREAL—Air Canada has raised nearly $500 million by selling and leasing back nine aircraft to help offset the cash drain from COVID-19.

The Montreal-based airline said Thursday it has sold nine Boeing 737 Max 8 jets for $485 million, and long-term lease commitments of $458 million.

The extra financial buoyancy comes after Air Canada saw passenger revenue drop 95 per cent in its second quarter, prompting 20,000 layoffs as the carrier burned through $19 million per day.

“If Air Canada has the flexibility to commence a sale and leaseback on any of the aircraft to raise additional funds, that’s a good thing,” said Robert Kokonis, president of Toronto-based consulting firm AirTrav Inc.

“The ramifications further down the road will be that Air Canada will have less unencumbered assets to pledge as cc collateral against other forms of debt.”

The company has raised almost $6 billion in liquidity since the start of the pandemic to mitigate the challenges and uncertainty caused by the virus, chief financial officer Michael Rousseau said in a release. It also recently completed two long-term financings to replace $1.4 billion in short-term debt coming due within the next nine months.

Air Canada currently has 24 Max 8s in its fleet, including the nine it has sold and leased back.

An additional 26 Max 8s that were initially slated for delivery ww are on hold indefinitely due to aa the pandemic as well as the on- t going grounding of the Max by authorities across the globe fol- aa lowing two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019.

Three of the sale-leasebacks are with San Francisco-based Jackson Square Aviation and the other six are with Dublinbased Avolon Aerospace Leasing Ltd.

Air Canada said it will continue to explore other financing arrangements that may be required to expand its cash posi- qq tion.

Travel restrictions and driedup demand continue to take a uu toll on the airline and tourism industries, with passenger numbers in Canada down 90 nn per cent year over year in July, according to Statistics Canada.