GIFT City's Aircraft Leasing Hub

Imagine an Indian airline needing a new aircraft and, rather than buying it outright, leasing it instead, the way most airlines globally actually acquire a large share of their fleet, except historically that lease had to be structured through a foreign leasing company based in Ireland or Singapore, meaning the financing fees, legal structuring and tax benefits all flowed offshore rather than staying within India. GIFT City's aircraft leasing hub exists specifically to change that.

The ambition is genuinely large given the market it's targeting, the global aircraft leasing industry was valued at $187 billion in 2025, dominated for decades by a handful of Ireland-based lessors who built their dominance on favourable tax and legal frameworks, GIFT City is trying to replicate exactly that kind of favourable regulatory environment on Indian soil, and has already attracted roughly 40 lessors managing over 220 aircraft and engines.

A genuinely important legal foundation underpins this push, the Protection of Interests in Aircraft Objects Act, 2025, India's implementation of the international Cape Town Convention, strengthens creditor rights and establishes clear, statutory repossession timelines if a lessee defaults, exactly the kind of legal certainty international lessors and financiers require before they'll commit capital to leasing structures based in a new jurisdiction, industry estimates suggest this reform alone could cut Indian carriers' annual leasing costs by nearly $500 million.

Air India's own leasing arm, AI Fleet Services IFSC, based in GIFT City, became the first entity to complete a commercial aircraft financing transaction structured with a GIFT City borrower, securing a $215 million loan to finance six Boeing 777-300ERs, a genuinely concrete proof point that GIFT City's aircraft leasing ambitions are converting from policy framework into actual, closed financing deals, exactly the kind of real transaction volume that will determine whether India can meaningfully dent Ireland and Singapore's long-standing leasing dominance.