Aircraft financing for owners and operators

In depth

Why aircraft financing is specialized

Financing an aircraft has little in common with financing a home. Aircraft are mobile, depreciating, and highly regulated assets, with their own systems for title, registration, and lien recording. Lenders who finance them understand how to value different makes and models, how usage and maintenance history affect the asset, and how to structure a loan around an aircraft’s particular economics.

Because of that specialization, aviation financing is a niche served by a limited set of lenders and finance companies. The right partner depends on the aircraft, its intended use, and the buyer’s profile — a light business jet, a turboprop, and a helicopter are financed by different playbooks. Matching the transaction to the right specialist is the core of a smooth close.

Business and personal use

Aircraft are financed for both business and personal use, and the intended use shapes the structure and the tax and ownership considerations that surround it. Many aircraft are held in dedicated entities for liability and operational reasons. We help connect buyers with partners who can structure the financing appropriately for how the aircraft will actually be owned and flown.

Who we help

Aviation financing serves business owners, executives, and operators acquiring aircraft for corporate or personal travel, as well as those refinancing or upgrading an existing aircraft. Given the values involved, these buyers frequently overlap with our jumbo, asset-based, and private-client mortgage clients — high-net-worth individuals whose overall financial picture benefits from coordinated advice.

As specialty asset financing arranged through partners, aviation loans sit outside consumer-mortgage products, and terms are set by the lenders active in this space. Our role is to connect you with the right ones and help the process run smoothly alongside the rest of your financing.

• Private and business jets, turboprops, and helicopters
• Purchase, refinance, and upgrade transactions
• Ownership through dedicated entities where appropriate
• Coordinated with jumbo and private-client mortgage needs

Getting started

Tell us about the aircraft and how it will be owned and used, and we’ll connect you with specialty aviation lending partners suited to the transaction. Because these deals involve appraisal, title, and structuring specific to aircraft, working with the right specialists from the start prevents costly delays.

A short conversation will clarify the realistic options, with no obligation. For clients coordinating aircraft financing alongside a home purchase or other lending, we’re glad to help keep the whole picture aligned.

For many of our clients, an aircraft is one piece of a larger financial picture that also includes a home, investment property, and other assets. Coordinating the financing across those pieces — rather than treating each in isolation — often produces a cleaner, stronger overall structure, and it’s a large part of the value we bring to high-net-worth clients who prefer to keep their advisors working from the same page. In practice, that coordination is what separates a smooth acquisition from a stressful one: the aircraft, the entity that will own it, and the financing all lining up on the same timeline rather than pulling against each other, so the transaction closes on schedule and without last-minute surprises.