NAFA member, Mike Smith, President of Scope Aircraft Finance, looks back at a volatile 2025—tariffs, tax policy, and rate shifts—and explains what those lessons mean for aircraft financing as owners head into an uncertain but opportunity-filled 2026.
As we push toward the end of January, I want to wish you one last “happy new year!” from Columbus, Ohio. The Scope team is mostly recovered from what turned out to be a very strong 2025. Looking back at the year, it’s incredible to see how it ended after how it started.
If you go into the way-back machine, you’d remember that, at the start of 2025, there was tremendous optimism that the Trump administration was going to jump-start the economy with favorable tax policy, and in our industry, that meant a rapid return to the accelerated depreciation schedules of yesteryear. The industry saw a lot of 2024 closing volume pull forward into 2025 which resulted in a busy January for all.
As the calendar turned to spring, we all pulled out our high school US history books to remember what the word “tariff” meant and how it worked. Second quarter was a quarter of learning and navigating as tariff policy changed daily, with a new dynamic of including aircraft transactions.
This article was originally published by The Plane Truth on January 22, 2026.