Aircraft finance sees flows from pension funds, insurers

[DUBLIN] Crisis, what crisis? The good times are rolling in the aircraft finance industry as yield-hungry investors gamble on growing demand for air travel, banishing recent jitters over funding.

Despite new concerns over emerging markets that mounted on Friday, an annual gathering in Dublin last week attracted record numbers of lawyers, bankers and lessors who keep the US$100 billion a year jetliner industry aloft with funding.

Just a few years ago, tougher capital regulations triggered fears that airlines would be unable to find the funds needed to pay for record numbers of aircraft being ordered from Airbus and Boeing, as European banks scaled back.