GE Commercial Aviation Services

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

GECAS (GE Commercial Aviation Services, formerly GE Capital Aviation Services, though the acronym is the more common usage) is a unit of GE Commercial Finance, itself part of the large conglomerate General Electric. The president of GECAS is Henry Hubschman. GECAS is responsible for the leasing of aircraft and associated equipment to airlines. GECAS buys aircraft from manufacturers like Airbus and Boeing and then leases them to airlines, typically on three to five year leases. It also buys aircraft from airlines and leases them back.

The primary competition for GECAS is ILFC, although other companies such as Aviation Capital Group, AerCap and RBS Aviation Capital (part of Royal Bank of Scotland) also compete with it. GECAS is the largest aircraft lessor in the world according to the 2005 Airfinance Journal Operating Lessor Survey.

At the beginning of 2005, GECAS had an inventory of 1,342 aircraft (per AvSoft/The Wall Street Journal.) Nearly all aircraft owned by GECAS are powered by engines from GE-Aviation, another subsidiary of General Electric.