The Government Agency That’s Sending Good Planes to the Aircraft Graveyard
Photo Credit: The Southern California Logistics Airport, a 'transitional' facility for commercial aircraft, stores second-hand planes. Many won't make it out whole, as the current market favors disassembled parts and scrap metal over used planes. Google Maps / Screen Shot
Skift Take
More than a decade of cheap, government-backed financing has built up the fleets of foreign airlines as well as the business of domestic manufacturers. It's also forced the early retirement of a lot of perfectly good planes.
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For a while after September 11, 2001, it looked like it would take a miracle to get the finances of the world’s airlines back off the ground.
Of course, it didn’t. Instead it took a series of well-executed government interventions, not the least of which was a popular financing program run by the United States government’s Export-Import Bank.
The “Ex-Im Bank” is the U.S.'s Export Credit Agency, similar versions of which exist in various countries throughout the world. Since the early twentieth century, such agencies have helped boost domestic manufacturing by guaranteeing loans to foreign companies for the purchase of those domestic products.
For instance, the U.S. Ex-Im bank guarantees loans to foreign airli
