9 Aircraft Sale-Leaseback Advisors and Placement Firms for Airlines Seeking Liquidity

For an airline, an aircraft sale-leaseback is not simply an asset sale. It is a capital-markets transaction with operating, technical, legal, tax, and fleet-planning consequences.

The right adviser can help an airline test market appetite, prepare a lender-ready information package, compare lease proposals on a like-for-like basis, and negotiate terms that still work when the aircraft reaches redelivery. The wrong process can create a headline sale price that looks attractive, but leaves the airline with expensive rent escalations, weak maintenance-reserve terms, restrictive return conditions, or limited flexibility at the end of the lease.

This is an editorial shortlist of firms worth considering when an airline is evaluating a sale-leaseback, lease placement, fleet refinancing, or related aircraft-capital transaction. It is not a ranking, and inclusion is not an endorsement. Some firms act as independent advisers or placement agents; others are valuation specialists, transaction advisers, or potential capital counterparties. That distinction matters.

What to look for before appointing a sale-leaseback adviser

A strong mandate should begin with a clear transaction objective. Are you releasing liquidity from owned aircraft? Financing future deliveries? Replacing short-term debt? Reducing concentration with one lessor? Funding an expansion plan?

Before approaching the market, the adviser should be able to help you define:

• the aircraft and delivery positions available for financing;
• the preferred lease term and residual-risk profile;
• required liquidity and timing;
• target lease-rent profile;
• maintenance reserves and end-of-lease exposure;
• jurisdictional, tax, ownership, and registration constraints; and
• the level of disclosure needed for prospective lessors and investors.

The firms below cover different parts of that process.

1. Seabury Securities

Seabury Securities is a logical option for airlines seeking a dedicated placement-agent and aviation investment-banking approach. Its public transaction record includes advising Porter Aviation Holdings on sale-and-leaseback and PDP financing for Embraer E195-E2 aircraft, including placement with multiple lessor counterparties.

Best fit: Airlines with a defined aircraft orderbook, a multi-aircraft requirement, or a need to run a competitive lessor process rather than negotiate bilaterally.

What to ask: Can the team provide a full bidder-comparison model showing lease rentals, security deposits, maintenance reserves, redelivery conditions, extension rights, and purchase-option economics—not just the headline purchase price?

2. SkyWorks

SkyWorks combines aircraft lease origination, investment banking, financing arrangement, restructuring advisory, and aircraft-and-lease management services. It has also publicly disclosed advisory work related to sale-leaseback financing for new-generation aircraft.

Best fit: Airlines that need sale-leaseback execution tied to wider fleet, orderbook, restructuring, or capital-planning work.

What to ask: Will the mandate include a lender and lessor outreach strategy, transaction modelling, lease-document review support, and board-ready decision materials?

3. ACC Aviation

ACC Aviation provides aircraft transaction advisory across sales, purchases, leases, lease extensions, transitions, and negotiations. Its sale-and-leaseback work has included supporting airlines in identifying capital sources, valuing aircraft and other assets, and managing the fundraising process.

Best fit: Airlines needing a practical transaction manager across commercial discussions, technical coordination, and transaction execution.

What to ask: How will the adviser coordinate lease economics with technical diligence, delivery timing, maintenance status, and return-condition exposure?

4. Alton Aviation Consultancy

Alton Aviation Consultancy offers independent aircraft leasing and financing advisory, including financial analysis, due diligence, market analysis, and entry or exit advisory. Its independent positioning can be useful where an airline wants to pressure-test assumptions before formally approaching lessors.

Best fit: Airlines, sponsors, and investors that need an independent market view before appointing a placement agent or selecting a lessor.

What to ask: Can the team produce an independent view on aircraft value, lease-rate assumptions, likely counterparty appetite, and the trade-off between a sale-leaseback, secured debt, finance lease, or alternative structure?

5. IBA

IBA is particularly relevant where the transaction requires detailed aircraft-market intelligence, lease-rate context, valuation work, and asset-level analysis. Its public market commentary continues to cover sale-and-leaseback activity, fleet renewal, and aircraft values, while its asset-services team also supports remarketing and transition management.

Best fit: Airlines and investors that need a robust, independently supported view of aircraft economics before negotiating price, rent, or residual assumptions.

What to ask: Can the adviser provide a clear valuation and market-rent rationale that can be used internally, with lenders, and in negotiations with potential lessors?

6. AVITAS

AVITAS is best known for aviation valuations, market intelligence, asset-management advisory, and lease-related technical analysis. Its work on lease-encumbered values and technical lease negotiations is especially relevant where the value of the aircraft depends heavily on the existing lease, maintenance position, and contractual return obligations.

Best fit: A transaction involving mid-life aircraft, existing leases, complex maintenance economics, or a need for an independent aircraft-value opinion.

What to ask: Does the valuation explicitly model maintenance events, reserve balances, redelivery compensation, contract assumptions, and the difference between base value and lease-encumbered value?

7. Cirium Ascend Consultancy

Cirium Ascend Consultancy is a strong option for airlines and investors seeking appraisal support, fleet-market analysis, and aircraft-value intelligence. Its consultancy work focuses on aircraft values, market activity, leasing conditions, fleet data, and risk analysis.

Best fit: Airlines that want independent market evidence before setting a pricing expectation or evaluating lessor proposals.

What to ask: Can the analysis distinguish between current market value, base value, market lease rate, and the transaction-specific economics of your aircraft and credit profile?

8. Aircraft Finance Germany

Aircraft Finance Germany, or AFG, provides aircraft acquisition and sales, financing, ownership and asset management, passenger-to-freighter solutions, and advisory services. Its broad transaction scope can make it relevant for airlines or investors with combined financing, trading, placement, and asset-management requirements.

Best fit: Commercial or cargo transactions where financing is linked to a wider aircraft acquisition, sale, placement, conversion, or asset-management programme.

What to ask: Is the firm acting solely as adviser, as broker, as asset manager, or as a principal in the transaction? The answer affects conflicts, economics, and negotiation dynamics.

9. GOAL Aircraft Leasing

GOAL is not an independent adviser in the traditional sense; it is an aircraft leasing and asset-management platform. However, it belongs on a sale-leaseback shortlist because it has publicly completed sale-and-leaseback transactions and offers leasing, asset-management, remarketing, and transition capabilities.

Best fit: Airlines seeking a direct leasing counterparty, particularly where the transaction needs an experienced asset manager with technical and commercial execution capability.

What to ask: Is GOAL being considered as a potential capital provider, a transaction counterparty, an asset manager, or all three? Confirm the role before comparing it with independent advisers.

How to narrow the shortlist

A practical airline process usually starts with three conversations, not ten. Select firms based on the exact mandate:

1. Independent advice: Do you need a neutral market view before going to lessors?
2. Placement: Do you need someone to run a competitive process and negotiate with multiple capital providers?
3. Execution: Do you need support across technical diligence, lease documentation, redelivery economics, registration, and delivery?
4. Capital: Are you looking for an adviser, a lessor, or both?
5. Speed: Can the firm work to your delivery schedule, refinancing deadline, or liquidity requirement?

The most effective sale-leaseback process is not the one with the largest number of bidders. It is the one that produces comparable proposals, protects the airline’s operating flexibility, and gives management a clear view of the long-term cost of capital.

Need an independent sale-leaseback assessment?

Before approaching lessors, prepare a lender-ready transaction file that covers aircraft data, maintenance status, delivery timing, fleet strategy, credit narrative, security package, target lease structure, and downside scenarios.

A well-structured process can help you identify whether a sale-leaseback is the right answer—or whether secured debt, finance leasing, PDP financing, or another structure offers a better result for the airline.

Request a confidential aircraft sale-leaseback assessment to evaluate transaction readiness, market positioning, and potential financing routes.