Air Transport

Airbus Financial Services has sold three Singapore Airlines A380s to Doric Asset Finance at a base purchase price of $198.6 million each. These are the first A380 financings to be completed, reports Flight International sister publication Commercial Aviation Online.

The purchase price includes buyer-furnished equipment costs. The 2007 list price for an Airbus A380 is $305.8 million.

The first aircraft, MSN003, is financed under a 10-year German operating lease. Financing sources familiar with the deal suggest the lease rate is $1.7 million a month.

German bank Nord LB is providing debt through a 12-year loan, an equity bridge, and an extra back-up facility. SIA has the option to extend the term for two additional years.

Mark Lapidus, Doric Asset Finance managing director, says: "The financing model is based on fixed leasing rates and fixed debt and gives investors a sizeable cashflow, an attractive return and is not affected by fluctuations in the stock market."

Aircraft MSN005 and MSN006 will be acquired under a similar financing structure. Both are due to be delivered by the end of January.

The financings are a boost for Airbus, given that the A380 is a new aircraft asset with unknown residual value, and the aircraft are among the first examples off the line.

"This so-called wiring difference on the first 24 aircraft is actually just a different production method," says Lapidus. "What was essentially a software difference between different Airbus plants meant that the earlier models were partly wired manually. This won't affect performance - it just alters how quickly Airbus can assemble the aircraft.