ASL Aviation Holdings raises $155m

ASL Aviation Holdings is raising up to a further $155 million (€142 million) in credit to pay for the Irish airline group’s fleet renewal programme.

The news comes days after the Dublin-headquartered cargo and passenger airline operator announced that it was buying Pionair in Australia.

ASL confirmed this week that it has closed a new credit deal, arranged by global bank, Goldman Sachs, under which it can borrow up to $155 million as needed over 15 months.

The airline will use the cash to fund an ongoing deal with US manufacturer Boeing to convert 40 B737-800s to carry freight. ASL is scheduled to have 16 of these in service later this month.

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The Irish group, which has subsidiaries in Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia, is the biggest operator of Boeing 737-800 converted freighters.

ASL originally planned to convert 10 B737s but the total has since grown to 40. The group has 140 aircraft in all.

Mark Kelly, group chief financial officer, said the deal with Goldman Sachs reflected ASL’s underlying strength.

“This facility will be utilised solely for our continuing Boeing converted freighter programme and the indicative rate achieved demonstrates the strong confidence in the market for our fleet renewal plans and our expansion strategy,” he added.

Separately, ASL got an initial $125 million credit facility from Goldman two years ago which it increased to $200 million last July.

The Irish company has airlines in Ireland, Belgium, France and the UK, an associate carrier – Flysafair, in South Africa – and joint ventures K-Mile in Thailand and Quikjet in India.

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This week it announced that it was buying Pionair Australia, which will be renamed ASL Airlines Australia.

The group flies cargo services for the world’s leading parcel delivery groups and online retailers, as well as its own scheduled and chartered cargo services across the territories in which it operates.

The company employs 2,500 people and has 140 aircraft, ranging across seven different models from ATR 72 turbo props to Boeing 747s.

Pionair will add 12 aircraft to the fleet. The Australian carrier flies passenger and cargo chartered services.

Headquartered in Bankstown Airport, Sydney, Pionair also has hubs in Adelaide, Brisbane, Cairns and Melbourne.

It has been operating cargo aircraft for TNT/FedEx in Australia since 2016. ASL expects to allocate one of its converted B737s to its new subsidiary as it continues with the conversion programme.