---
title: Aircraft Lessor AerCap and Air France KLM's Maintenance Arm Form Spare Jet Engine Venture as Repair Backlog Deepens
description: Aircraft lessor AerCap and Air France KLM's maintenance arm form a 50/50 spare LEAP engine venture as annual engine overhauls head past 5,000 a year by 2040.
author: Darie Nani (Editor-in-Chief)
date: 2026-07-23T08:47:02.147Z
updated: 2026-07-23T08:47:02.154Z
canonical: https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/aercap-afi-klm-leap-spare-engine-venture
image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/desk-img-32.webp
categories: Markets
content_type: News
region: England
publication: Sovereign Magazine
access: members
schema_type: Article
---

The narrow-body engine shortage has become acute enough that two of aviation's largest players are pooling capital and expertise to address it directly. AerCap Holdings and Air France Industries KLM Engineering & Maintenance signed an agreement at Farnborough 2026 to establish a 50/50 joint venture that will acquire approximately 40 new CFM LEAP spare engines, with deliveries running through 2032 and the first four engines available to customers by early 2027.

The deal, which follows a memorandum of understanding signed at the Paris Air Show in 2025, targets a specific and worsening constraint: airlines operating LEAP-powered narrow-body aircraft cannot get their engines through maintenance fast enough, and spare engines to cover aircraft while their primaries are in the shop are in short supply. Both sides of that problem are getting worse, not better.

The joint venture combines AerCap's position as the world's largest owner of commercial aircraft and its engine leasing infrastructure with AFI KLM E&M's MRO operation, which supports almost 3,000 aircraft for roughly 200 airlines and employs more than 12,800 people. The structure gives the venture a financier and an operator working from the same ownership stake, rather than the arm's-length commercial relationships that typically connect lessors and maintenance shops.

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