Air Lease - Earnings Call - Q2 2025

Executive Summary

• Q2 revenue was $731.7M, up 9.7% YoY, and above S&P Global consensus ($710.4M), driven by fleet growth and $20M end‑of‑lease revenue; GAAP diluted EPS printed $3.33 due to $344M Russia insurance recoveries, while adjusted pre‑tax EPS was $1.40. Revenue consensus beat; normalized EPS appears below consensus (see Estimates Context).*
• Aircraft demand and lease rates remained robust; portfolio yield rose, order book placements are 100% through 2026 and largely placed for 2027; sales pipeline expanded to $1.4B with high gain margins.
• Management expects an additional ~$60M net insurance benefit in Q3 2025 and guided to the upper end of $3.0B–$3.5B FY25 delivery outlook; ~$600M deliveries and ~$300M aircraft sales targeted for Q3.
• Capital flexibility improved (debt-to-equity back at target; ~$7.9B liquidity; 97% unsecured debt); A350F order cancellation freed >$1B forward capex, and buybacks are under evaluation, setting up potential capital return catalysts.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• “Strong quarter bolstered by new aircraft deliveries, healthy gains on sales, increasing portfolio yield, and significant Russia insurance recoveries” (CEO).
• Placement strength: orderbook 100% placed through 2026, ~87% for 2027; lease extensions at higher rates support yield trajectory.
• Aircraft sales margins strong (~16% gain on sale margin in Q2), and pipeline healthy at $1.4B above historical margin averages.

What Went Wrong

• Aircraft sales volumes below internal expectations due to closing timing (4 aircraft sold; $126M proceeds vs higher volumes prior period), reducing gains YoY.
• Interest expense rose ~$19M YoY on higher composite cost of funds (4.28% vs 3.99%+) and debt balances; adjusted pre‑tax ROE trended lower YoY.
• End‑of‑lease revenues elevated in Q2 ($20M) but management does not expect significant amounts for the rest of 2025 as leases extend; Q3 end‑of‑lease will likely be modest.

Transcript

Speaker 3

Good afternoon. My name is Regina, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Air Lease Corporation second quarter 2025 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question, press star one again. We kindly ask that you limit your questions to one and one follow-up. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Jason Arnold, Head of Investor Relations. Mr. Arnold, you may begin the conference.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Regina. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Air Lease Corporation's second quarter 2025 earnings call. This is Jason Arnold. I'm joined today by John Plueger, our Chief Executive Officer and President, and Greg Willis, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Earlier today, we published our second quarter 2025 results. A copy of our earnings release is available on the investors section of our website at www.airleasecorp.com. This conference call is being webcast and recorded today, Monday, August 4, 2025, and the webcast will be available for replay on our website. At this time, all participants to this call are in listen-only mode. Before we begin, please note that certain statements in this conference call, including certain answers to your questions, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act.

This includes, without limitation, statements regarding the state of the airline industry, the impact of aircraft and engine delivery delays, our aircraft sales pipeline, and our future operations and performance. These statements and any projections as to our future performance represent management's current estimates and speak only as of today's date. These estimates involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. Please refer to our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a more detailed description of risk factors that may affect our results. Air Lease Corporation assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements or information in light of new information or future events. In addition, we may discuss certain financial measures such as adjusted net income before income taxes, adjusted diluted earnings per share before income taxes, and adjusted pre-tax return on equity, which are non-GAAP measures.

A description of our reasons for utilizing these non-GAAP measures, as well as our definition of them and the reconciliation to corresponding GAAP measures, can be found in the earnings release and 10Q that we issued today. This release can be found in both the investors and press section of our website at airleasecorp.com. Similar to prior quarters, given ongoing litigation, we won't be able to take any questions about our Russia fleet insurance claims. Lastly, as a reminder, unauthorized recording of this conference call is not permitted. I'll now turn the call over to our Chief Executive Officer and President, John Plueger. John?

Speaker 2

Thanks, Jason. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. In the second quarter, Air Lease Corporation generated revenues of $732 million and $3.33 in diluted earnings per share. Results benefited from our new aircraft deliveries, healthy gain on sales, increasing portfolio yield, end-of-lease revenue, and another quarter of significant Russia fleet insurance proceeds. Fleet net book value and book value per common share reached all-time record levels in our company's history as of the end of the quarter. Expanding on our Russia insurance recoveries, we recognize a net benefit from insurance settlements of $344 million during the second quarter and expect to recognize an additional $60 million net benefit in the third quarter. To date, I'm very pleased to say that we recovered, or have signed agreements to recover, 104% of our initial Russia fleet write-off.

We purchased 12 new aircraft from our order book during the second quarter, adding approximately $890 million in flight equipment to our balance sheet and sold four aircraft for $126 million in sales proceeds. The weighted average age of our fleet rose slightly quarter over quarter to 4.8 years, while weighted average lease term remained unchanged at 7.2 years. Fleet utilization remains 100%. As of mid-year, we've delivered about $1.7 billion of aircraft out of our expected outlook for full-year order book deliveries of roughly $3 to $3.5 billion. At this point in time, we believe we are likely to hit the upper end of our full-year expected range. We are anticipating around $600 million of deliveries for the third quarter and will provide a fourth quarter 2025 delivery outlook update for you on our next earnings call.

Moving on to aircraft sales, our intent is to continue the pace of aircraft sales to maximize available capital. To that end, our sales pipeline is sizable at $1.4 billion, up relative to last quarter, and all at an attractive gain on sale margins. We continue to expect around $1.5 billion of aircraft sales for 2025 in total and are projecting $300 million of sales for the third quarter, with a balance to close in fourth quarter of 2025. This quarter's particular sales volume came in below our expectations due to the timing of anticipated closings falling outside the quarter. Our gain on sale margin for the quarter was high at approximately 16%, reflecting continued strong aircraft demand in the secondary market. Commercial aircraft demand remains robust, and our order book placement activity reflects this strength. Lease rates, in turn, remain strong as well.

Aircraft supply constraints continue to persist, perpetuating the strength in lease rates and aircraft values, and are expected to remain this way for several years into the future, as we've highlighted many times in the past. Our order book is 100% placed through 2026, with only a modest number of placements remaining for 2027. Lease extension activity also remains high, with nearly all customers choosing to extend rather than let aircraft go to competitors or other airlines. The lease rates we are garnering on these extensions are strong, higher than a year or even eight months ago, including recent widebody extensions of A330 and Boeing 777 aircraft in various regions. Looking at our order book, we did cancel our order for seven A350 freighter aircraft.

We think the A350 freighter is a terrific freighter, but since we made that order in December of 2021, we simply decided to stick with new passenger airliners versus venturing into new freighters. Contractually, the majority of our A350 freighter aircraft were more than a year late. This cancellation frees up more than $1 billion in forward CapEx commitments, making that capital available for other alternatives. On that note, regarding capital deployment, let me just say that we are very disciplined buyers of aircraft, and as we have shared in prior quarters, we still do not view pricing of new aircraft orders to be attractive. We are entirely focused on doing what's best for our shareholders, which includes both commitment to our long-term stock performance and maintaining a strong balance sheet. We're pleased with our Russia insurance recoveries and liquidity position, including just now getting back to our leverage target.

With our enhanced financial flexibility, we are carefully considering opportunities to return capital to shareholders. It's important to note that despite tariffs, geopolitical, and macroeconomic uncertainties, conversations with our customers remain positive, with some continued note of caution towards geopolitical uncertainties. For the backdrop of airline operations, further declines in fuel prices have been very supportive of airline profitability as a whole, and U.S. dollar weakness has been supportive of the profitability of international airline carriers in particular. On Friday, the Lufthansa Group reported a 27% rise in second quarter adjusted operating profits due to loyal prices, strong U.S. demand, and robust performance of its cargo and MRO units. Similarly, last week, Air France-KLM, our largest European customer group, reported an operating profit up 44% year-on-year due to strong yields and gains on its premium offering.

Globally, passenger traffic continues to expand at a good pace overall of around 5% year to date, according to the latest IATA data. Recent commentary from several U.S. carriers reflects optimism that demand trends are reversing course to the positive in the second half of the year. As most of you know, about 90% of our airline customers are outside of North America. We were very pleased to see zero-for-zero tariffs on commercial aircraft and parts in the U.S.-EU tariff agreement announced last week. The impact of a major or protracted U.S.-EU tariff battle on the overall aerospace industry and supply chain could have had significant impact on manufacturers, airlines, and the broader macroeconomic environment as well, and would be particularly tough on a sector that has already dealt with plenty of disruptions over the past four or five years.

Very good news that a negative outcome has been successfully averted, particularly given the scale of the aerospace industry within these two markets. We believe a clear precedent has now been set globally for exemption of commercial aircraft from high-magnitude tariffs. I will also remind you that as part of our lease agreements, tariffs are the responsibility of our customers and that our purchase agreements with the OEMs limit their ability to increase prices by escalation caps. In conclusion, we continue to see bright skies ahead for our business. Portfolio yields on our fleet are set to trend higher, primarily as a product of strong lease rates on new deliveries, strong extension rates, and COVID restructuring maturities. We've received significant insurance proceeds, as I've highlighted, and fixed-rate market financing rates have continued trending lower as the yield curve continues to slowly normalize.

These tailwinds are all poised to propel us forward for years to come. I'll now turn the call over to our CFO, Greg Willis, to offer more detail and color on our financial results. Greg?

Speaker 0

Thank you, John, and good afternoon, everyone. During the second quarter, Air Lease Corporation generated total revenues of $732 million, up 9.7% over the prior period. This increase was driven by a 13.5% increase in our rental revenue, driven by the growth of our fleet, an increase in end-of-lease revenue, and our portfolio yield. As we have guided in the past, we continue to expect that our portfolio yield will remain on an upward trajectory due to the rolloff of COVID-era leases, the seasoning of our existing fleet, and lease extensions, despite the effects of selling aircraft at higher yields, which I'll address in more detail in a few minutes. In prior periods, we included maintenance revenue in the rental revenue line item. However, going forward, we will now break out maintenance revenue as a separate line item on our income statement for increased clarity.

Maintenance revenue in the quarter was up $16 million, driven primarily by end-of-lease income received during the period. End-of-lease revenue is highly dependent upon the timing of returns. Given the current high demand environment that we are in, we do not expect to receive significant amounts of end-of-lease income in the remainder of 2025, as a vast majority of our leases are set to extend with the current operators. As a reminder, extending leases at market rates further enhances the value of our aircraft, and we typically capture the value of end-of-lease income in the ultimate disposition of the aircraft. Sales proceeds for the quarter total $126 million from the sale of four aircraft. This compares to the prior period where we sold 11 aircraft, totaling $530 million in proceeds. Aircraft sales volumes were down this quarter due to the timing of aircraft sales.

As we have said in the past, it is difficult to forecast when aircraft sales will ultimately close due to a host of airline customer legal and jurisdictional matters. However, these sales generated approximately $17 million in gains, representing roughly a 16% gain on sale margin, which is at the top end of our performance in recent history. Beyond gains on sales, we also benefit from an increase in our management fees and other income. Turning to our aircraft sales pipeline, it currently sits at $1.4 billion, with healthy gain on sales margins above our historical average of 8% to 10%. It's also worth noting that the aircraft in our pipeline are carrying asset yields that are significantly lower than what existed in prior years. Therefore, this should help dampen the impact of aircraft sales on our portfolio yield trajectory.

This is driven by several factors, including our basis in the aircraft, which directly benefits from our disciplined approach to aircraft investment, the types of aircraft in our fleet, and an improvement in underlying credit quality of our customers, as well as improvements in the interest rate environment for our buyers. Moving on to expenses, interest expense rose by approximately $19 million year over year, driven by a 29 basis point year-over-year increase in our composite cost of funds to 4.28% at quarter end. However, relative to the end of the first quarter, our composite cost of funds rose only two basis points. Higher financing costs and debt balances were the primary contributors to the year-over-year increase in interest expense. At the end of the second quarter, roughly 77% of our borrowings were at fixed rates versus floating, inside our 80% target.

We continue to benefit from our largely fixed-rate financing structure, which has meaningfully moderated the impact of an elevated interest rate environment at the front end of the curve. Depreciation expense continues to track the growth of our fleet. Turning to SG&A and stock comp, we recognize the majority of the non-recurring expenses related to Steve Házy's retirement in the first quarter, resulting in meaningfully lower SG&A and stock comp expenses this quarter. I do want to point out that this quarter, as we previously mentioned, we have an additional $2.2 million in stock-based compensation expense related to Steve Házy's retirement, which is the last of these retirement-related expenses. SG&A as a percentage of revenue was flat as compared to the first quarter, excluding the non-recurring retirement expenses, and was flat as compared to the prior year's quarter at around 6.8% of revenue.

We expect this number to trend lower over time as the fleet continues to expand and legal expenses related to our Russia fleet litigation wind down. As John noted earlier, we recognize a net benefit of $344 million in Russia fleet insurance settlements, in total representing approximately $2.43 per share in the quarter, which, in addition to the operating results, boosted our book value per share to $65.53 per share. Combined with legal settlements executed in the third quarter, our recovery of our initial Russia fleet write-off stands at approximately 104%. Moving on to our financing activities, as we highlighted last quarter, we believe that we are largely able to self-fund our order book with expected operating cash flow and sales activity. Therefore, the primary financing needs remain related to the refinancing of our existing debt.

While the front end of the curve remains elevated, we have seen market financing rates improve measurably on term debt issuances within our typical targeted maturity range. We remain opportunistic in our approach to refinancing needs, so we will continue to monitor the capital markets for attractive entry points. We also maintain well-positioned for further normalization of the yield curve. We believe our patience has served us well. Our debt-to-equity ratio declined to just below 2.5 times target following the recognition of additional insurance settlements and our operating results this quarter. We anticipate having more financial and capital flexibility over the next several years. The cancellation of our A350 freighter order further reduces our capital needs for financing new aircraft deliveries in future periods.

As always, our strong liquidity position of $7.9 billion, $31 billion of unencumbered assets, and $29 billion of contracted rentals continue to remain key pillars of financial strength for our business. To wrap up, we are very excited about the tailwinds we foresee for our business at present, which we see as propelling us forward with EPS growth and rising profit margins and ROE ahead. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Jason for the question and answer session of the call.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Greg. This concludes our prepared commentary and remarks. For the question and answer session, we ask each participant to limit their time to one question and one follow-up. Operator, please open the line for the Q&A session.

Speaker 3

At this time, I'd like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. Our first question comes from the line of Terry Ma with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Hey, thank you. Good afternoon. I just want to start out with lease expirations and maturities. You guys had quantified about $5 billion of lower yielding leases that are expected to expire in the next two years, and that should help contribute to a 150 to 200 basis point improvement in yield. I was just hoping, maybe for a mark-to-market of where you are in that process, how much of that $5 billion has been extended or renewed, and what the trajectory for lease yield is going forward from you.

Speaker 1

Sure, Terry, I'll take it. Right now, we're tracking exactly along the same path that we had set forth back in Q1 when we put forward those numbers. I don't have an updated number of what % of the $5 billion roll-off where we are currently, but I will say that our guidance of 150 to 200 basis point improvement is still valid. In fact, actually, with the change in dynamic of our sales pipeline coming in with lower yields on those assets is actually helping, but we're going to hold off any further on updating guidance on further yield improvements at the current time.

Got it. Okay. Maybe just on capital allocation, you guys are now within your leverage target. You expect some additional recoveries in the third quarter, and you also mentioned the additional $1 billion capital kind of freed up from the freighter cancellation. Maybe just kind of talk about how you evaluate the relative attractiveness of kind of buybacks to your other kind of opportunities.

Speaker 2

Yeah, hi, this is John. I'll take that. Yeah, look, buybacks are a very attractive looking form of capital allocation, as I mentioned in the past. Our point about just reaching our debt-to-equity ratio is simply that we are building a very, very strong balance sheet with excess capital, such that any capital moves or capital deployment we may make will be meaningful. At the same time, give us the ability to retain a very strong balance sheet with no threat at all to our investment grade ratings.

Speaker 3

Our next question will come from the line of Catherine O'Brien with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Hi, good afternoon, everyone.

Welcome.

Hey, how are you? One of your peers recently was just noting that with deliveries picking up, airlines' capital requirements would be too, and they expected there could be more deals that met their return threshold via sale-leaseback channels. I guess, what's your view on that, and how does that figure into the capital allocation strategy? It sounds like shareholder returns are still pretty high on the list, but we kind of love the punch list for what looks the most attractive to you guys now and thoughts on if there's more capital deployed sale-leaseback. Thanks.

Speaker 2

Sure. Look, the evolving landscape with customers and their perspective on order books are always there, and we always do consider that. However, as I mentioned in my remarks, continued strengthening of our available capital with a view towards our shareholders is equally, if not more so, attractive at this time. We continue to build capital on that basis.

That makes sense. Maybe just on Russia, I know you're limited in what you can say, but I guess with the $60 million settlement, is there more left? Are you expecting you still need to go to court this fall, or just trying to get a sense of what's still outstanding. Thanks so much.

Thanks, Kate. It's John again. I think we've indicated $60 million for the third quarter, but we are still in litigation in London, and I'm just simply not able to comment further.

Okay, got it.

Speaker 3

Our next question will come from the line of Moshe Orenbuch with TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

Great, thanks. I guess we'll go three for three, talking a little bit about capital. Maybe just to frame the question slightly differently. Your returns are improving, and they're expected to improve. Sounds like they, Greg, they could be improving a little faster even if the yield kind of steps up at a faster pace. Can you relate for us how you would think about like how much of the capital, or like how much excess capital you could be generating and how to think about that in the context of kind of improving returns?

Speaker 1

Yeah, I don't think we can, we're not prepared to give a number of how much excess capital we have over the next several years. Very clearly, a lot of it's dependent upon our sales activities, which currently are very strong. I think you're going to want to see us continue to execute upon our sales pipeline as well as source new additional sales around those levels to create more capital. As a reminder, we just got back down to our debt-to-equity target. I think it just takes a little bit of time to build the capital to be in a position to evaluate what to do with that excess capital that everybody's foreseeing us having.

Speaker 2

Moshe, let me just reiterate one of my comments in that, you know, one of the most important considerations when you're asking sort of directly about size is that whatever we do in capital appointment, it's meaningful, whether to shareholders or anything else. At the same time, to be able to, as I said, retain a very strong balance sheet in the view of our bondholders and the rating agency. We're trying to exercise our best judgment, but anything we do is going to be meaningful.

I certainly appreciate that. Maybe to kind of follow up on the comments about aircraft sales, the sales this quarter were lighter, but you've got an expectation of that picking up. You did cancel some orders as well. If you could outline for us how you're thinking about how much of the fleet you will put up for sale, that would be helpful. Obviously, we know what your plans are for the back half of this year, but as you think about it in 2026, is there a way to kind of dimension that for us?

Speaker 1

Yeah, I mean, we're targeting $1.5 billion this year, and I think we're targeting about the same levels for the next several years, which should create additional capital. I will point out the A350 freighter cancellation mainly impacted 2027 and 2028 in terms of CapEx needs. I think those all are coming together and we'll continue to execute and update you on where we are from an excess capital perspective.

Speaker 2

In other words, just keeping the same pace, Moshe, where we've been. We're very comfortable with that. We think we can execute it from a sales perspective, and it also, bottom line, it just maximizes our opportunities. We don't see accelerating sales beyond that. Circumstances could change, I certainly don't see it. At the same time, we love the building of capital from that level of sales. Just expect that to continue.

Thanks very much.

Speaker 3

Our next question comes from the line of Hillary Cacanando with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Hi, thank you so much. You mentioned that you're not expecting much end-of-lease revenue this year due to higher extension rates. In terms of modeling for next year, are you expecting end-of-lease revenues to go down again next year due to a higher extension rate, or do you expect it to revert next year or the year after? How are you thinking about that?

Speaker 1

I think you probably should expect the sort of the same levels that you saw in 2025 as in 2026, assuming the environment still remains strong. I think that's probably a fair number, and not every single lease will extend because maybe we don't want to extend with the underlying carrier. In that case, we take the airplane back and take end-of-lease income. I think it's a bit of a balance, but I think probably what we've done this year is probably fair for next year.

Probably similar level. Okay. I think last quarter you mentioned that, you know, obviously you mentioned it again that the rates on the extensions were higher than the original rates. Last quarter you actually said there were some as much as 50% higher than the original rate. Are you still seeing, like, you know, high extension rates like that? Are you still seeing that level? In terms of the rest, are they, you know, five or six years, or are they much shorter?

The extension rates that we're doing again this quarter were higher than what the previous lease carried. We're still feeling very good about that, which is why we're still feeling very good about our overall portfolio yield trajectory. The market remains really robust, especially as we take out a lot of these COVID-era leases.

Are they long in terms of, are they like five or six years in length?

Yeah, they're your standard extensions from four to six years, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter, but on average, they're in that area.

Got it.

Speaker 2

Actually, what is good to see is that the wide-body extensions are pointing a little further to longer extensions in the four to five area range. That's pretty much a slam dunk for single aisle, but the wide bodies are now at that longer extended term length as well.

Oh, that's great. Good to see. Helpful. Thank you very much.

Speaker 1

Okay.

Speaker 3

Our next question comes from the line of Jamie Baker with J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Oh, good afternoon, gentlemen. Just one question from us, and I guess it sort of builds on Katie's question. She referenced the Air Cap call. The topic of sale leasebacks came up, and obviously, there haven't been a ton of transactions in that space as of late, and what recent deals have gotten done. It sounds like the economics are skewed more in favor of the airlines rather than the sponsoring lessors. Air Cap's view is that as OEM production rates increase, it could actually improve to strengthen economics. That's the basis of our question. As production rates begin to rise, how do you, I guess, how do you triangulate the impact that that will have on the sale leaseback market, the extension of current leases, and your order book dynamics at Air Lease? Thanks.

Speaker 2

I think the most important fundamental, Jamie, to consider is that even with production rate increases, even with those increases, which have not all been achieved by any certain length, there is still a shortfall in supply for the next three to four years, and that assumes those production rate increases. We do fully expect those production rate increases to go into effect. As to how it will impact the sale leaseback market remains a little unclear, but our litmus test really is very fundamental and hasn't changed. We know what we pay for aircraft. We know what we get for leases. We're happy to take a look at any sale leaseback opportunities, but I don't think, at least sitting here today, it's hard to see that there's going to be a material shift in that marketplace versus the order book marketplace.

I think that sale leaseback marketplace will still tend to be overly competitive and will probably still return a lower lease. Having said that, we are completely open on that aspect as well. If we find a unique opportunity with an airline, perhaps to do a sale leaseback on a certain % of its orders in connection with placing our orders, we're very happy to do that.

Okay, that'll do it. Thanks a lot, John. I really appreciate it. Take care.

Speaker 3

Our next question comes from the line of Ron Epstein with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Yeah, yeah. Good afternoon, guys. Maybe just a quick one and then a quick follow-up. Are you starting to see reasonable production stability out of the OEs?

Speaker 2

John. I would say yes in the following sense. November of 2024, we got our last forward, our last delivery projection outlook from Boeing. I must say that they've lived up to that, and the quality has been good and high. Clearly, they've not stepped to 42. I think that they have projected that for the end of the year. I think they will do so on that timeframe if they are ready. I also think that if they are not ready, they will not. Airbus, there has been no further slippage since February, March, where we were notified, quite much to our surprise, of another year's delivery of most of our single aisles going on in 2026 and 2027. There has been no change there either. I would just remind you that Airbus today at its single aisle production rate is at a much higher rate than Boeing.

Just by that, I would say that there perhaps is still a bit more risk in the Airbus production rate. I could be wrong. This is just, I'm just giving you my gut feel here. That's the best way I can answer it.

Got it. Maybe if we just sort of focus a little bit more on the quarter. When we think about kind of the recovery here, you know, understanding that, you know, the COVID era contracts pressured yields, and they last for a while. I think you guys guided for yields to trend higher over the course of the year, and it does seem like we backtracked a little bit in the quarter. Is that just because some aircraft with some higher yields on them were sold, or, you know, how should we think about that?

Speaker 1

Ron, I think actually yields increased during the quarter. That's the numbers we're seeing, and we're happy to share with you the details. If you look at it on an average asset basis, they actually increased this quarter, and we expect them to continue to track upward over the next several quarters.

Okay, great. All right. Yeah, thank you.

No problem.

Speaker 3

Our next question is a follow-up from the line of Catherine O'Brien with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Thanks for the extra time. I just was wondering, can you just give us an update on demand from airline customers? Obviously, with the extension rate and some of the commentary you made for some of the strong results of European carriers and the prepared remarks, it sounds like it's business as usual. Was there basically no impact around the tariffs outside of maybe the U.S. that you've seen over the last couple of months? I just guess I'd love to hear how conversations about growth and taking new deliveries and demand for orders are sounding with the airlines versus where they were in January and April, if there was a difference between January and April and now. Thanks so much.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Katie. Very clearly, I can say that as to the passenger commercial aircraft, there's really no change at all in the positive momentum that we're seeing in aircraft demand overall. In fact, it's the same or perhaps even a little greater in certain aircraft types, such as the A321neo. Where I do think there has been an impact, though, from tariffs has been in the cargo markets. I think the freighter markets have had a little bit more fluctuation in this era that we're currently in, the last several months in the tariff era, as I would call it. That kind of remains to be seen. For example, that was one of the things that we thought about referencing our A350 freighter order. I would say, again, there has been a little bit of tempering, but primarily, it's been on the cargo side.

Not that we're a huge provider of cargo aircraft. I need to be very clear. Our sense is there has been a little bit of caution on the cargo markets, but really not the passenger aircraft demand.

Got it. Really helpful. Thanks for the extra time.

Sure.

Speaker 3

There are no further questions at this time. Mr. Arnold, I turn the call back over to you.

Speaker 1

Thank you all for participating in our second quarter call. We look forward to speaking to you again next quarter. Regina, thank you very much for your help, and please disconnect the line.

Speaker 3

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.