The Rise And Fall Of The Man Who Invented Aircraft Leasing

58% of every commercial aircraft in the sky is not owned by the airline flying it. The planes you board every day — operated by Emirates, Lufthansa, American Airlines — are owned by leasing companies most passengers have never heard of. This is the $30 billion secret hiding in plain sight. On June 18, 1992, Tony Ryan watched his empire collapse in a single morning. Guinness Peat Aviation — the company that invented modern aircraft leasing — had just attempted the biggest stock market flotation in Irish history. By midday, it was over. And what happened next changed global aviation forever. In this video we expose how aircraft leasing went from a single borrowed idea to controlling the physical infrastructure of the entire aviation industry, why the system nearly destroyed itself before it even began, and what happens when the companies that own the world's planes run out of places to hide the risk.