From: Monte Davis 

George Sherwood  wrote:

>Not sure I
>realized the power of these leasing firms.

My father was with American as I grew up, then a reporter and editor at air
travel trade magazines. I learned via him of the reputation Udvar-Hazy was
building up (think Warren Buffett) as an accurate assessor of a new plane's
prospects.

It's not just that he (and GE Capital) are de facto big
"customers" -- it's that as lease packagers and financiers, they
tend to be more cool-eyed and objective than even the airline execs. For
them, performance and operating costs and load factor guesstimates are all
subordinate to "will this sucker make money over time?"

Bottom line: they are absolutely, positively the *last* people on earth
Airbus (or any manufacturer) would want to have kicking the tires and
grumbling out loud at a venue like that. My guess is that "you have
until Farnborough to get your act together on the A350" means
Udvar-Hazy had talked to them privately about this and gotten [what he felt
was] a brushoff.

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