How Irish Aircraft Lessors Fund Their Fleets: Loans, Bonds, Equity
Quick answer
Irish aircraft lessors still fund about 64% of their balance sheet with loans and bonds, but the mix has shifted from bank loans toward bonds, and interest paid has risen to 35% of income.
Aircraft are expensive and long-lived, so leasing companies fund them mostly with borrowed money. The CSO publishes the liabilities side of the industry’s balance sheet (table ALIA07), which shows how that funding is split between bank loans, bonds, shareholder equity and other items.
The balance sheet
In 2025 aircraft leasing companies in Ireland held €252.6 billion of assets and carried €252.8 billion of liabilities. The two match because the CSO counts shareholder equity investments among the liabilities, so the table balances. Of the assets, €183.5 billion is tangible fixed assets, which for a lessor is mainly the aircraft.
Where the funding comes from
| 2013 | 2019 | 2025 | Share in 2025 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Loans | €63.4bn | €135.5bn | €122.3bn | 48% |
| Bonds and notes | €12.7bn | €14.2bn | €39.1bn | 15% |
| Equity investments | €23.2bn | €39.9bn | €55.8bn | 22% |
| Creditors | €5.4bn | €10.6bn | €9.4bn | 4% |
| Other liabilities | €14.5bn | €19.5bn | €26.2bn | 10% |
Loans and bonds together were 64% of liabilities in 2025, close to the 64% in 2013 and slightly below the 68% in 2019. The total reliance on debt is steady. The mix is not.
The shift from loans to bonds
Loans were 62% of liabilities in 2019 and 48% in 2025. Bonds and notes went from 6% to 15% over the same period. The change was abrupt rather than gradual: bonds and notes stood at €12.8 billion in 2020 and €31.8 billion in 2021. They have stayed near €30 billion to €40 billion since.
In 2025, loans fell by €13 billion (from €135.4 billion to €122.3 billion) in a year when total assets fell by €17.8 billion, from €270.4 billion to €252.6 billion. That is the first drop in total assets since 2020.
Interest costs
Interest paid was €9.6 billion in 2025, up from €6.8 billion in 2019, an increase of 41%. As a share of total income (€27.6 billion) interest paid was 35% in 2025 against 28% in 2019. The wages and salaries line, by comparison, was €0.6 billion. Financing, not payroll, is the cost that shapes this industry.
Equity investments grew from 18% of liabilities in 2019 to 22% in 2025, so shareholders are funding a larger slice of the fleet than they did before the pandemic.
Limits of the data
These are aggregates for the whole industry, so they cannot say which companies issued the bonds or which borrowed from banks. The CSO does not say why the mix shifted, and we have not tried to. The rate and timing of the change line up with the post-2020 period, but the table alone does not show cause. Latest-year figures are provisional.
Related: How Big Is Ireland’s Aircraft Leasing Industry? and Where Irish lessors earn their lease income.