Published
November 2023
Products used
Operation type
Aircraft Leasing & Asset Management
Airborne Capital is an Irish-based specialist in aircraft leasing and asset management, established in 2017. In a short time, the company has built a rapidly growing portfolio, today managing approximately $2.2 billion in assets across 58 aircraft.
Airborne works with a customer network of 27 trusted airlines and lessors across 17 countries, serving portfolio investors with a range of different needs, from managed aircraft to Asset Backed Structures, with a team of 31 employees.
The challenge
Scaling beyond spreadsheets and disconnected systems.
Prior to implementing LeaseWorks, Airborne managed its aircraft portfolios across a number of disconnected systems. As the company grew, that patchwork approach struggled to keep up: the team needed a way to automate its technical, contract, finance, and management functions without adding undue burden on its people.
Specifically, Airborne needed to centralize and monitor portfolio asset data to safeguard aircraft values, derive accurate and granular insight into the technical condition of its assets, manage cash flow so the right resources were available at the right time, and automate invoicing so lease managers could stay ahead of customer payments and delays. Managing portfolios through Excel spreadsheets had worked well enough as a stopgap, but the manual process had clear limits, and it would eventually stand in the way of scaling the platform further.
So Donna Marie O’Neill, Head of Operations at Airborne, went looking for an off-the-shelf solution that could adapt to the pace of the business. After hearing about LeaseWorks from an industry colleague, she found that its cloud and mobile accessibility, robust dashboards, and user-friendly design were exactly what Airborne needed, particularly given how differently its portfolio investors needed the system to behave.
The solution
A tailored implementation around LeaseWorks Asset.
Once Airborne chose LeaseWorks, the focus shifted to implementation. “The implementation process started by communicating the importance of standardizing processes around data entry,” explained Archana Sukumar, the LeaseWorks Customer Success Manager assigned to Airborne. From there, Sukumar and her team meticulously documented Airborne’s processes and configured the system to match, rather than asking Airborne to adapt to a rigid, one-size-fits-all setup.
As a result, LeaseWorks Asset enabled Airborne to better manage its asset and lease data, automate reporting, and keep rent and maintenance reserve collection and claims timely and accurate, finally replacing the spreadsheets and manual work that had defined portfolio management before. Airborne also built its own approval process into the system and set up key notifications, further streamlining the workflow around its team’s actual needs.
The implementation process was efficient and the LeaseWorks team’s assistance was best-in-class. We now have the ability to automate our invoicing and generate on-demand management reports without manual processes.
— Donna Marie O’Neill, Manager Operations, Airborne Capital
The result
A strengthening, ongoing partnership.
For Donna Marie O’Neill and her team, the shift away from spreadsheets changed how Airborne actually runs its business day to day. Invoicing that once required manual tracking now happens automatically, management reports are available on demand instead of assembled by hand, and the approval workflows and notifications Airborne built into the system keep rent and maintenance reserve collections on schedule rather than chasing delays after the fact.
That reliability matters even more given how differently Airborne’s portfolio investors operate, from managed aircraft to Asset Backed Structures. With LeaseWorks handling the operational load, Airborne’s team can focus on the judgment calls that actually grow the business rather than reconciling spreadsheets. As the platform continues to scale, LeaseWorks and Airborne are extending that same collaboration further.
We are continuing to strengthen our partnership with Airborne through ongoing collaboration and further adaptation of our various products and solutions to meet their rapidly changing needs as the platform grows.
— Haseem Vazhayil, Former CEO, LeaseWorks
$2.2B
Assets under management
58
Aircraft in the portfolio
27
Airlines and lessors served across 17 countries
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