Airbus Starts Islamic Aircraft Funding

Hamburg (Jun26th) – Europe’s biggest plane maker airbus has started a project for aircraft funding in accordance with Islamic law. As media sources reported Thursday the industry giant had signed a memorandum of understanding with the Islamic Development Bank or IDB to facilitate the needs of lease and funded sale in the Islamic world. Sharia law prevents Muslim believers to engage in transactions that involve interests – a fundamental difference to classical western financial products.

Airbus A350XWB MSN5 during take-off. Pic: Airbus Press Center

"Our main goal is to attract new sources of capital to our industry for the benefit of our customers. Our market has become a lot more international, in particular in the financial market," Yann Ballet, head of project and structured finance at Airbus Group, told Reuters news agency. He and officials from the Saudi-based IDB told reporters that several orders where already under

While Airbus has already many orders from the Gulf, the programme may aid future clients in the Asian market whose funds are not as swiftly available as for the giant Arabic players. Markets like Malaysia, Indonesia or even Pakistan and Bangladesh could be much easier to enter since Islamic compliance is a mayor issue for many airlines there.

AU/pvk