Airliner World – April 2018

30 AIRLINER WORLD APRIL 2018

wanted to use different types – what we
would call our principal types – with
ATR, Bombardier and Embraer’s E-Jet
family. And we accomplished that,”
Ridolfi proclaimed. “Not only did we
exceed our growth expectations, and
of course our profit hopes, but we met
those diversification targets.”
Impressively too, some of those
delivered by CAC in year one, were
brand new. “The Ethiopian Airlines
Q400s, for example, we took deliv-
ery before passing them on. While the
Air Nostrum jets were delivered from
Bombardier directly. Some of the other
aeroplanes we have bought from other
leasing companies – like the ATRs – we
acquired from Avation PLC Group. So,
they came from a variety of sources but
we’re very happy with the customer list.
All the deliveries of new aircraft were
part of sale/leaseback deals.
“Using Air Nostrum as an example,
basically they had ordered CRJ1000s
from Bombardier. They were look-
ing for a source of financing and so I
phoned them up and said, ‘I want to
do deals on some of your aircraft’. So,
we did a sale/leaseback transaction
where we stepped into the shoes of Air
Nostrum, took delivery of the aeroplane
and then arranged long-term leases
with them. “Several of the aeroplanes
were done in that fashion and several
were purchased from other lessors. Our
average aircraft age is about three years,
so they’re mostly quite new.”
Placing direct orders with manufac-
turers for new aircraft will be CAC’s
third way of acquiring aeroplanes,
Ridolfi confirmed, though it may not
happen immediately. “From my
perspective, I want to gain a little more
critical mass here, but I am sure that’s
in our future.”
Aircraft for nine customers across
six continents need finance. Jazz and
Chorus have been very strong and

these transactions.”

Ridolfi therefore has more money to

spend and is looking around the mar-

ket for new possibilities. “Yeah, I’m still

shopping,” he quipped. His tone makes

it quite clear that he is enjoying his

role. “When I retired from Bombardier,

I wanted to start a leasing company and

obviously Joe and the team here had

already got that under way, so we joined

forces and I think it’s been a marvellous

first year.”

Going back to the whole operation

of Chorus Aviation, beyond the CAC

leasing arm and the contract flying

is the aforementioned Jazz Technical

well-renowned operations for quite

some time under Randell’s leadership,

so Ridolfi and his team were able to

meet one of the commitments made

to the Chorus Aviation board that the

CAC fleet would be a standalone from

Jazz. “We’ve been able to finance this

fleet with a combination of equity and

debt,” the CAC president stated. “The

equity came from our Fairfax Financial

Holdings debenture that we did a year

ago. For the debt, we get bilateral debt

transactions with several banks, which

was also an accomplishment for us this

year. We built some banking relation-

ships and were able to do a number of

Voyageur Aerotech has

completed the first

Dash 8-100 passenger-

to-freighter conversion

at its North Bay/Jack

Garland Airport facility.

Chorus Aviation Capital

had a very successful

first year under the

control of former

Bombardier Aerospace

Senior Vice President

Steven Ridolfi.