Further information concerning issues that could materially affect performance can be found in AerCap's earnings release dated February the 6th, 2026. A copy of the earnings release and conference call presentation are available on our website at aercap.com. We will shortly run through our earnings presentation and will allow time at the end for Q&A. This was a record year for AerCap, with exceptional financial and operating performance driven by disciplined execution across all of our business lines.

In 2025, we reported record GAAP net income of $3.8 billion, or $21.30 per share, and adjusted net income of $2.7 billion, or $15.37 per share. Full-year revenues reached an all-time high of $8.5 billion, while sales volumes totaled a record $3.9 billion. During the year, we had Cash CapEx of $6.1 billion, and we generated $5.4 billion of operating cash flow for the full year 2025. Demand remains robust, with recent industry-wide load factors at record highs, while delivery delays and maintenance backlogs have kept supply constrained.

To that point, it is encouraging to see increases in OEM production rates in recent months, which should start to alleviate some of the backlog for new aircraft. That said, we do not expect to see a normalization of the supply-demand imbalance until sustained higher monthly production rates are achieved. So while demand dynamics may evolve, we remain confident that the current structural shortage of aircraft will persist at least through the end of this decade. This included the sale of 189 assets, delivering a gain-on-sale margin of 27%, or 2x the book equity on our owned assets.

What went well
  • Record full-year 2025 GAAP net income of $3.8 billion ($21.30/share) and record adjusted net income of $2.7 billion ($15.37/share), both all-time highs.
  • Full-year revenues hit an all-time high of $8.5 billion, with a record $3.9 billion of asset sales at a 27% gain-on-sale margin (2x book equity), and 705 total transactions executed in 2025.
  • Returned a record $2.6 billion to shareholders in 2025 via ~22.1 million shares repurchased plus dividends; announced a new $1 billion buyback program and raised the quarterly dividend to $0.40/share.
  • Received $1.5 billion of Ukraine-related insurance/legal recoveries in 2025 (helped by a favorable June court judgment), bringing total recoveries since 2023 to ~$3 billion, which now exceeds the original $2.7 billion 2022 charge.
  • Balance sheet strengthened with a Fitch credit rating upgrade and net debt-to-equity of 2.1x at year-end; book value per share up 19% in 2025 and 68% cumulatively since 2022; over $3 billion of excess capital available to deploy.
  • Strong forward visibility: 95% of the order book placed for the next two years, average remaining lease term of 7 years, 87% of leases extended in 2025 (up from 79% in 2024), and growth in engine/cargo/helicopter platforms (777-300ERSF freighter certification, Milestone helicopter utilization at 99%).
What went wrong
  • Spirit Airlines bankruptcy restructuring drove unusually high leasing expenses and pushed net maintenance contribution to -$106 million in Q4 (about $130-150 million below the normal $30-50 million/quarter range), and downtime on repossessed Spirit aircraft will continue to weigh on 2026 lease revenue, with some aircraft not returning to service until 2027.
  • 2026 guidance of $12-13 adjusted EPS represents a sharp step-down from 2025's record $15.37, driven by excluding gains on sale (-$3.95), lower other income (-$0.45), and a higher effective tax rate assumption of 15.5% vs. 13.6% in 2025 (-$0.30), since 2025 benefited from one-off tax releases that won't repeat.
  • Average cost of debt ticked up to 4.1% from 4.0% quarter-over-quarter, and full-year 2026 interest expense is projected at ~$2 billion.
  • Management reiterated that OEM delivery delays and maintenance backlogs persist, with the supply-demand imbalance not expected to normalize until well into the 2030s - production surprises to the upside 'simply do not occur.'
  • New engine/airframe technology (LEAP, PW, etc.) is running hotter and coming off-wing more often than prior-generation equipment, requiring more aircraft to fly the same schedules and keeping maintenance/time-on-wing economics under pressure for years.
  • CFO guided to only $2-3 billion of asset sales in 2026 (down from a record $3.9 billion in 2025) and cautioned that CapEx and sales volumes are inherently variable, dependent on OEM delivery timing and market conditions.

More on AerCap Holdings N.V.

Reported 2026-02-06 · figures from the AerCap Holdings N.V. Q4 2025 earnings call.

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