NAFA member Kyle O'Donnell, Aviation Sales Executive with Elevex Capital, shares his latest article on aircraft financing.
“My client has financing handled” is a comfortable premise, not a fact — and the data says it's the most expensive assumption in the transaction.
Every aircraft sales professional has heard the sentence, usually within the first fifteen minutes of the engagement, always delivered with total confidence: “Financing's handled, my bank's got it.” And every professional who's been at this longer than one market cycle knows what that sentence looks like on day 45: an underwriting file stalled in a committee that meets biweekly, a third request for entity documents nobody mentioned needing on day one, a listing broker starting to ask politely, then less politely, whether this buyer can actually perform. Meanwhile the pre-buy slot you fought to get at the service center is burning, the contingency window in the LOI is closing, and the backup offer that was theoretical in week two is suddenly returning the listing broker's calls.
The data says this isn't anecdote. Secured Research analysis of business aviation transactions found financing to be the leading cause of missed closing dates, implicated in 44% of delayed transactions — more than pre-purchase inspection findings and title issues combined. And in the majority of those files, the buyer entered the deal genuinely believing financing was already arranged.
This article was originally published by Elevex Capital on August 21, 2026.