*Incoming Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury and Avolon CEO Dómhnal Slattery
An aviation company whose CEO hails from Ennis have this week signed an $11.5 billion deal to purchase 100 new Airbus planes.
Domhnall Slattery who is a past pupil of Ennis National School and St Flannans is the current Chief Executive Officer of Avolon. Their order for 100 aircraft consists of 75 A320neo jets and 25 of the larger A321neos.
As a result of the deal, Avolon is now Airbus’s largest aircraft lessor backlog customer. Their orderbook with Airbus increases to over 220 single-aisle and 45 twin-aisle aircraft. The new planes will be delivered from 2023 onwards. The order is Avolon’s largest ever with the European aircraft maker, and grows the Irish-founded lessor’s owned, managed and on-order fleet to just under 1,000 jets, worth more than $50bn (€44bn).
In a statement, Slattery maintained the investment “reflects our ambition to become the global leader in the sector”. He added, “We are locking in growth well into the next decade and building on our existing order book of exclusively new technology aircraft. The Avolon co-founder said the company continues to see robust demand from its customers for the A320neo family.
“This is consistent with our own market research and global fleet forecast. Our order affirms our belief in the medium-term market outlook and the strong growth prospects for our business,” he added.
