DAE Revenue Rises 13.2% to $1.4B as Macquarie Deal Reshapes Fleet
The Dubai aviation services company closed the $9 billion Macquarie AirFinance purchase in July, lifting total assets to $26.8 billion as its owned fleet reached 716 aircraft.
DAE raised revenue 13.2% year on year to $1.4 billion, or AED 5.3 billion, for the first nine months of 2026, up from $1.3 billion a year earlier. The Dubai aviation services company released the results on Tuesday.
Profit before tax and exceptional items came in at $370.7 million, 8.8% higher than the $340.8 million recorded a year before. The adjusted pre-tax margin narrowed to 25.6% from 26.7%, and operating cash flow fell 3.5% to $1.1 billion.
The balance sheet moved far more than the income statement. Total assets reached $26.8 billion at Sept. 30, against $16.5 billion at the close of 2025, an increase DAE attributes to the Macquarie AirFinance acquisition. Net loans and borrowings rose to $16.8 billion from $10.2 billion. Available liquidity climbed to $5.6 billion from $3.4 billion.
That $9 billion purchase closed at the end of July. It lifted the owned, managed and committed fleet to 983 aircraft at Sept. 30, roughly double the total of 24 months earlier, of which 716 are owned. The combined count covers aircraft DAE owns outright, aircraft it manages for third parties and aircraft it has committed to buy. Firoz Tarapore, the chief executive, said DAE is now the world's second-largest aircraft lessor by owned fleet count. The deal also strengthened ties with Boeing and Airbus and pushed the delivery pipeline into the 2030s.
Tarapore called the integration functionally complete and said he expects it to be finalized by the end of November.
Two investment platforms announced in the first half of 2026 are meant to build the asset management side of the business. Equator, formed with Blackstone Credit & Insurance, is a long-term co-investment platform targeting $1.6 billion of aircraft investments a year. Mustang, launched with Neuberger Berman, targets $6 billion over the medium term. DAE expects the pair to support about $15 billion in additional aircraft assets over five years.
With those mandates executed, the company projects a combined owned, managed, committed and mandated fleet of 1,300 aircraft. It said the Macquarie acquisition and the two programs would broaden its services to airline customers and strengthen relationships with suppliers and trading counterparties.
Scale in leasing is bought with debt, and the jump in borrowings shows the price. The fee-earning platforms are the counterweight: third-party capital from Blackstone and Neuberger Berman can fund growth that does not sit entirely on DAE's own balance sheet. Whether that offsets a margin that has already slipped will show in the quarters after the integration closes.
Fleet activity was brisk. DAE acquired 290 aircraft in the nine months, 272 owned and 18 managed, including units added through the Macquarie transaction. It sold 58, split between 48 owned and 10 managed, and signed 195 lease agreements, extensions and amendments. In August it announced a purchase-and-leaseback with Saudia covering four Boeing 777F freighters. The managed fleet was valued at $3.9 billion.
DAE Engineering, which provides maintenance, repair and overhaul from Amman in Jordan, booked roughly 900,000 maintenance man-hours and carried out more than 170 aircraft checks. Revenue remained below target. Tarapore attributed the shortfall to persistent airspace closures, many of them still in effect. He said the Northern Hemisphere winter outlook is positive, citing a strong pipeline of expected maintenance work. The Amman facility can accommodate up to 24 widebody and narrowbody aircraft.
