JetBlue soars & Polaris dune-hops with GE Capital

With JetBlue Airways set to mark its 10th birthday this February, CEO Dave Barger is busy jetting off to each of the 61 cities the airline serves as part of the celebration. As Dave told the New Orleans Times-Picayune during his visit there last week, JetBlue is adding a new plane to its fleet about every 30 days. While it’s less than the new jet every 10 days that characterized a rapid expansion in 2006, Dave told the paper: “It’s still significant growth. It allows you to be more surgical in terms of where you are deploying aircraft. It allows the time to be innovative.” Behind that deployment is financing from GE Capital Aviation Services, or GECAS, which first started working with JetBlue in 2003, helping it finance 10 Airbus A320s and another 30 Embraer E190s. Today, GE Capital is JetBlue’s largest aircraft financier. Of the airline’s 155 planes, GE Capital has provided over $1 billion in financing for 42 of them. In the video below, which the GE Capital team just placed on their website, Dave talks about the ongoing relationship.

That expansion translates into performance, as Dow Jones Newswires just reported that JetBlue’s “traffic levels rose 8.3 percent last month from a year earlier as the discount carrier continues its outperformance compared with other airlines. The company also said preliminarily, passenger revenue per available seat mile — a key performance measure — jumped 16 percent in July…. Most airlines have been reporting gains from prior-year weak levels, but JetBlue’s growth has consistently outpaced others,” Dow Jones reported.

“Even as a fledgling airline, we could see their potential,” said Declan Kelly, GE Capital’s relationship executive responsible for JetBlue. Declan — who has almost 25 years of aviation experience, including nine as an aeronautical engineer — and the team are currently working with JetBlue to add four additional Airbus A320s to their fleet. It was GECAS, with its deep knowledge of the airline leasing industry and a fleet of over 1,800 owned and managed aircraft in 75 countries, that recently made headlines during the giant Farnborough Air Show with its latest order for 100 new planes — seen as another sign of an overall airline industry comeback.

Likewise, the GE Capital team is helping Medina, Minnesota-based Polaris Industries expand its adrenaline-fueled market for sand-dune shredding all-terrain vehicles globally, as you can see in the video below with CEO Scott Wine.

Polaris built its first snowmobile in 1956 — and while they don’t claim to have invented snowmobiles, they are credited with building one of the first practical ones “that really worked.” Now with high-tech snowmobiles, the ATV line, and an expansion into motorcycles in 1998, annual sales approach $1.6 Billion.

Polaris makes its sales via a network of nearly 1,400 dealers in the U.S., plus a growing distribution network in Canada and abroad. To help maximize that network, especially in a global economic slowdown, GE Capital — which has a 26-year relationship with Polaris — is currently working with them on two fronts. On the one hand, GE’s Commercial Distribution Finance team, which has a broad footprint in motorsports financing, gives insight into industry-wide trends beyond Polaris’ dealers to help them manage inventory and risk. On the other, GE Capital Sales Finance helps Polaris build sales volume by providing promotional financing programs — with over 90 percent of U.S. Polaris dealers signed up to use GE Capital financing plans.

Learn more in these GE Reports stories:
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* “Healthymagination Fund’s first investment has heart”
* “Cooking up a recipe for success at Jack in the Box”
* “Brando, McQueen & GE rev up Triumph Motorcycles”
* “GE Capital’s loan helps grow 150 jobs in Shreveport”