Aviation Finance: A $4 Trillion Opportunity Takes Flight
High Ridge Aviation CEO Greg Conlon joins Benjamin Ensminger-Law, Portfolio Manager, Asset-Based Finance at PIMCO, to discuss the growing aviation finance sector and the forces driving demand for aircraft leasing and financing.
The conversation explores the scale and resilience of the aviation market, growing airline use of operating leases, constrained aircraft supply, and how the partnership between High Ridge Aviation and PIMCO combines deep aviation industry experience with global investment and capital markets capabilities.
Watch the video below.
Video originally published by PIMCO on September 8, 2026. View the original video and additional information at PIMCO.com.
Transcript
Benjamin Ensminger-Law, Portfolio Manager, Asset-Based Finance: Aviation finance is the capital that keeps the world’s aircraft flying, funding their acquisition, leasing, and ongoing management. And it’s among the largest, fastest-growing corners of asset-based finance.
Aviation supports over $4 trillion of global economic activity and moved nearly 10 billion passengers last year. Aircraft are hard, globally mobile assets that can offer investors a differentiated income stream, contractual collateral-backed cash flows, diversification from corporate credit cycles, inflation-mitigating real asset exposure.
Greg Conlon, CEO, High Ridge Aviation: Leasing is large and increasingly preferred by airlines – operating leases now finance over half the global fleet, up from a fraction in 1990.
Airlines choose to lease rather than own to preserve capital and keep fleets modern, creating durable, recurring demand for scaled financing partners.
Ensminger-Law: Long-term demand is powered by a rising global middle class, expanding emerging market roots and a structural consumer shift towards travel and experiences. that demand meets constrained supply. The order backlog now exceeds 17,000 aircraft.
About 60% of the active fleet, keeping capacity tight, holding values firm and lifting leasing demand. We manage the risk by underwriting the aircraft, the airline, and the jurisdiction on every deal and concentrating on the most liquid aircraft types.
Conlon: PIMCO is one of the largest providers of aviation financing across public and private markets, partnering with the former senior management team of GE Capital’s aviation business, then the world’s largest aircraft lessor, to create High Ridge Aviation. HRA is a full-lifecycle platform – origination through remarketing – with 300+ airline relationships, 20+ years of experience, and 30+ specialists across 8 global locations.
The partnership pairs PIMCO’s scale and capital markets depth with HRA’s relationships across the global aviation industry and technical asset management and remarketing capabilities, developed over multiple aviation cycles.
Every deal passes through two sets of eyes: High Ridge has boots on the ground globally working directly with airlines and lessors and PIMCO brings its relative-value oriented lens to structure and finance deals globally
For airlines and other counterparties in the industry, our experience and flexibility allows us to provide creative solutions – deepening relationships and ultimately creating attractive investment opportunities for PIMCO’s clients.
Ensminger-Law: We’re very excited about these opportunities in one of the most durable and growing segments of the asset-based finance and real assets market. For investors, aircraft leasing offers an attractive combination of potential benefits.
Stable contractual lease income backed by globally liquid, mobile hard assets with return drivers distinct from corporate credit and equity markets. Ultimately, clients gain access to a differentiated hard asset income opportunity sourced by a dedicated platform and underwritten with PIMCO’s global risk discipline.
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