ISTAT Jetrader - Winter 2021 - 16

The Finance Panel, moderated
by Dick Forsberg, senior external
consultant at PwC, focused on
the aviation community's capital
requirements in the post-COVID-19
landscape. Panelists were Bertrand
Grabowski, independent adviser; Ross
O'Connor, head of capital markets at
Avolon; and Christine Rovelli, senior
vice president of finance and fleet
management at Finnair. Over the past
18 months, O'Connor said, Avolon
has raised over $5 billion, making
for a stronger balance sheet than
before the pandemic. He also said
the asset-backed securities (ABS)
market is generally very strong at
the moment, with Avolon having
already seen five ABS transactions
post-COVID-19. For Finnair, Rovelli
remarked that they changed up their
approach from liquidity early in the
pandemic to starting to refinance
a bit. " Our strategy evolved as the
situation did, " she said. " We are out
of crisis management mode. But we're
always monitoring. "
57%
of the audience believed
global traffic will return to
2019 levels by 2023.
When asked which
manufacturer has better
narrowbody product family,
75%
of the audience
responded with either
Airbus by a little or
Airbus by a lot.
16 * THE OF F I C I AL PUBL I CAT I ON OF ISTAT
RIGHT:
The Finance Panel
with moderator
Dick Forsberg
(far right) and
panelists, from
left, Bertrand
Grabowski, Ross
O'Connor and
Christine Rovelli.
LEFT: The
Propulsion Panel
with moderator
John Vitale
(far right), and
panelists, from left,
Mary Prettyman,
Rom Chambard,
Iván Hutter and
Sandrine Lacorre.
Later, Rovelli touched on her
company's goals for sustainability.
" We're doing everything we can to
increase our sustainability efforts, "
she said. " Even with all of that, it
gives us only single digit percentage
improvements in carbon emissions
reduction. Investors say 'not enough.'
When you get down to the nitty gritty,
we want to be credible, but the impact
of the measures we currently have
available is just not high enough, and
it's frustrating. Sustainable fuel is
expensive. It's going to take an industry
effort and government involvement to
get meaningfully ahead of where we
are now. "
Next up was the Propulsion Panel,
moderated by John Vitale, president
and CEO of AVITAS Inc., with speakers
Mary Prettyman, head of marketing at
Pratt & Whitney; Rom Chambard, vice
president of marketing at Rolls-Royce;
Iván Hutter, director of marketing for
Europe and Africa at GE Aviation; and
Sandrine Lacorre, product marketing
general manager at CFM. Prettyman
discussed her thoughts on sustainable
fuel, saying " SAF is already approved
up to a 50% blend, and we're ensuring
our products can operate with 100%
SAF once the specification is defined.
In July, Pratt & Whitney Canada
announced a hybrid-electric propulsion
technology and flight demonstrator
program in collaboration with De
Havilland Canada. The Dash-8 100
demonstrator is expected to achieve
a 30% reduction in fuel burn and CO2
emissions, targeting flight testing by
2024. Generally on hybrid-electric, the
electric motors will supplement power
for takeoff and climb requirements. In
the auto industry, they didn't start with
hybrid SUVs, so a regional aircraft is
a good starting point. On hydrogen,
ISTAT Jetrader - Winter 2021

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