{"id":471190,"date":"2026-05-06T12:05:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T12:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/471190\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T12:05:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T12:05:09","slug":"irish-aircraft-lessors-caught-up-in-fallout-from-the-collapse-of-spirit-airlines-in-us-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/471190\/","title":{"rendered":"Irish aircraft lessors caught up in fallout from the collapse of Spirit Airlines in US \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Irish aircraft lessors could be caught in the fallout from the failure of Spirit Airlines<\/a>, the troubled US carrier forced out of business last weekend by soaring fuel prices.<\/p>\n

Spirit had no option but to halt operations after it learned on Thursday that the federal government had decided not to proceed with a proposed $500 million (\u20ac? million) bailout of the airline, lawyers told a US bankruptcy court on Monday.<\/p>\n

Dublin-based aircraft lessors Aercap<\/a>, SMBC Aviation Capital and others provided Airbus aircraft to the airline, which ceased operations on Friday after receiving news of the government\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n

Aercap was one of Spirit\u2019s bigger suppliers but the Irish company had already ended leases on 27 jets in an agreement that the pair struck last autumn as the airline emerged from a court-supervised restructuring process in the US.<\/p>\n

Under the terms of that deal, Aercap allowed Spirit reject all but 10 of 37 existing leases. The Irish company agreed to lease Spirit 30 Airbus A320 and A321 aircraft with deliveries beginning in 2027 and ending in 2029.<\/p>\n

Aercap agreed to provide $150 million towards Spirit\u2019s restructuring and would have the right to pursue a claim for $572 million against the airline, which was an unsecured debt.<\/p>\n

The company did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Dublin-based SMBC Aviation Capital is understood to have leased eight aircraft to Spirit, while Avolon had two. Neither company commented on the matter.<\/p>\n

Aercap, SMBC and Avolon are the three biggest players in their industry globally. Several other Irish companies are also thought to have leased aircraft to the US carrier. <\/p>\n

Lessors own the aircraft that they supply to airlines. They have the right to re-possess them when customers cease trading or do not meet rental or other payments due under the terms of their agreements.<\/p>\n

Spirit had 114 aircraft in its fleet worth around $7 billion in total, according to some estimates. The airline leases 66 of them.<\/p>\n

It already has agreements to sell 20 of the jets that it owns, dating back to last year\u2019s restructuring, according to filings with US stock market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission.<\/p>\n

Spirit was already struggling to turn a profit before the fuel shock and was facing $100 million in extra fuel costs since March 1st.<\/p>\n

Spirit\u2019s lawyers asked the US bankruptcy court on Monday for permission to pay workers $10.7 million in retention bonuses to remain with the company to aid its wind down, news agency Reuters reported.<\/p>\n

The airline is also seeking to keep on three of its top executives through the process, although it did not say how much it intended to pay them.<\/p>\n

However, the US Trustee, the justice department\u2019s bankruptcy watchdog, \u200chas raised concerns about the bonuses.<\/p>\n

Spirit says it does not have money to conduct an \u200borganised auction of its aircraft, engines and other equipment, and is asking \u200bthe court for permission for fast-track sales or to let the lenders repossess them, Reuters added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Irish aircraft lessors could be caught in the fallout from the failure of Spirit Airlines, the troubled US…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471191,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[8221,3084,4851,79,18,7610,177489,143030,206705,19,17,15893,5,204972,1543],"class_list":{"0":"post-471190","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-transport","9":"tag-airlines","10":"tag-airport","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-failure","14":"tag-fuel-costs","15":"tag-general-view","16":"tag-global-operations","17":"tag-ie","18":"tag-ireland","19":"tag-negotiations","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-spirit-airlines","22":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116527544866195672","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}