Day: February 26, 2026

Combined fleet to total 1,029 aircraft across ‌79 countries

Acquisition adds 37 airline customers, expands into seven new countries

Deal expected to close in H2 2026, subject to regulatory approval

Dubai Aerospace Enterprise said on Thursday it will buy aircraft leasing firm Macquarie AirFinance for an enterprise value of about $7 billion, creating a combined fleet of 1,029 planes and one of the world’s biggest lessors.

The sale, which followed a competitive bidding process, underscores strong investor appetite ‌for aircraft ‌assets as Boeing and Airbus struggle to ​ramp ‌up ⁠production to ​meet airline ⁠demand.

The global aircraft leasing market is dominated by AerCap Holdings N.V. and SMBC Aviation Capital, both based in Ireland.

The Macquarie AirFinance deal would lift DAE into the top tier, analysts said.

“(It) … fast tracks Dubai Aerospace Enterprise to the forefront of global aircraft leasing,” said Tim Waterer, chief market analyst at KCM Trade, ⁠adding that the deal also diversifies the Dubai ‌state-owned lessor’s customer base and increases ‌exposure to newer aircraft, even as ​supply constraints at major manufacturers ‌persist.

The combined fleet will serve 191 airlines in 79 countries, ‌with narrowbody jets accounting for about 70 percent of the portfolio, DAE said.

The acquisition, which adds 37 airline customers including carriers in seven countries where DAE has no presence, will be funded through a mix ‌of debt and equity.

DAE CEO Firoz Tarapore said the deal would create a “bigger, stronger, more ⁠diversified and ⁠well-capitalized” company, adding that the combined entity’s scale would support more competitive pricing and a broader customer offering.

DAE is owned by the Investment Corporation of Dubai, the main investment arm for the government of the emirate. The company acquired Dublin-based AWAS, the world’s tenth biggest aircraft lessor, in 2017.

Macquarie AirFinance is owned by Australia’s diversified investment service provider Macquarie Group.

The deal has been approved by DAE’s board and is subject to regulatory approvals, DAE said in a statement.

It is ​expected to close in ​the second half of 2026. 

source/content : arabnews.com (headline edited)

Two films by Arab filmmakers won top prizes at the 76th edition of the Berlin International Film Festival, where filmmakers used their time on stage to advocate for a free Palestine.

Lebanese director Marie-Rose Osta, accepting the Golden Bear for best short film for “Someday, a child,” denounced Israeli bombings in her home country and what she described as a “collapse of international law” in the region.

“In reality children in Gaza, in all of Palestine, and in my Lebanon do not have superpowers to protect them from Israeli bombs,” she said. “No child should need superpowers to survive a genocide empowered by veto powers and the collapse of international law … If this Golden Bear means anything, let it mean that Lebanese and Palestinian children are not negotiable,” she said.

Abdallah Al-Khatib, winner of the best documentary prize for “Chronicles from a Siege,” brought a Palestinian flag on stage, and called out the German government for what he called its “complicity” in Israeli “genocide” in Gaza.  

“We will remember everyone who stood with us, and we will remember everyone who stood against us, against our right to live with dignity, or those who chose to be silent. Free Palestine from now until the end of the world,” he said.

Opening the awards ceremony, Berlinale director Tricia Tuttle addressed the controversy surrounding this year’s festival, as artists called out Berlinale for not taking a stance on Palestine. She described this year’s festival as having “felt raw and fractured,” with many attendees arriving in Berlin “with grief and anger and urgency about the world that takes place outside the cinema walls.

“That grief, that anger and that urgency is real and belongs in our community. We hear you,” Tuttle said.

source/content : arabnews.com (headline edited)

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Lebanese director Marie-Rose Osta, accepting the Golden Bear for best short film for “Someday, a child.” (AFP)

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LEBANESE / PALESTINIAN-SYRIAN