Air Lease revenue rises as travel boom boosts demand for jets

(Reuters) -Aircraft lessor Air Lease Corp reported a rise in third-quarter revenue on Thursday, helped by strong demand from airlines looking to expand their fleet to tap a boom in travel.

Airlines are increasingly opting to lease new and young-used aircraft from lessors to offset jet delivery delays from Boeing Co and Airbus SE. The Los Angeles-based leasing giant, which has a $28 billion order backlog with the planemakers, said in August that the company would examine progress payments that it makes to Boeing and Airbus as aircraft deliveries get delayed. Still, the shortage of airplanes has driven up lease rates in a boost to aircraft lessors such as Air Lease.

The company reported net profit of $99.96 million, or 90 cents per share, compared with a profit of $100.01 million, or 87 cents per share, a year earlier.

Revenue came in at $561.3 million for the three months ended Sept. 30, compared with $524.5 million a year earlier.

(Reporting by Aishwarya Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)