There is no room for pessimism on the pathway to net zero
In a detailed discussion about the future of regional aircraft leasing, Rob Munro quizzed TrueNoord’s CEO Anne-Bart Tieleman on the company’s strategy for managed growth, fleet sustainability, and adaptation to diverse global markets.
Anne-Bart Tieleman, CEO of regional aircraft lessor TrueNoord, oversees a rapidly expanding portfolio and leads a growing team in offices in Amsterdam, Dublin, London and Singapore.
Tieleman established TrueNoord in 2016, building on his prior leasing business, GA-Finance. An aviation enthusiast and private pilot, he also drives the company’s sustainability agenda.
He sat down with us to explain how TrueNoord plans to achieve managed growth by expanding its balance sheet to attract more favourable financing, while also preparing for future sustainability challenges by engaging with new technology manufacturers.
Tieleman highlighted the company’s strategy for managing its fleet, noting that older turboprops and regional jets still have significant value and efficiency.
He also discussed how TrueNoord adapts its business model to meet the specific needs and risks of diverse global markets, from Africa to Australia, and shared his perspective on the future of regional aviation.
Long-term vision and differentiation
TrueNoord specialises in aircraft with 50 to 150 seats, including turboprops like the ATR 42/72-600 and the Dash 8-400, as well as regional jets such as the Embraer E195-E2 and Airbus A220. Tieleman says this is a specialised market segment that the bigger players tend to avoid.
“The reason why this continues to be perceived as a specialised area is that the larger lessors find this market segment too small to invest in with their limited resources. They will keep focusing on the larger mainline capital-intensive narrowbody and widebody market.
“If we look at the ongoing growth of the aircraft leasing market and the further professionalisation of our industry, you will see that lessors will continue to expand with ever more assets on their books, becoming real financial institutions, as some already are.”
In line with this shift, Tieleman believes the leasing industry will continue to professionalise.
He says: “This is also happening in the regional sector, with concentration on only a few players but with relatively large balance sheets. I believe TrueNoord is certainly one of these players going forward, growing further with more aircraft in ownership and a larger balance sheet.”
Scale is also a key metric for rating agencies, which Tieleman acknowledges is important.
“Rating agencies value balance sheet size as one of the key metrics they use to determine the rating of a company. The bigger the balance sheet, the more likely you will get a better rating. Of course, there is an array of other key metrics, but size matters.”
Adapting to greener aviation
How is TrueNoord adapting its business model for greener aviation, and what is the role of regional aircraft lessors in this transition?
Tieleman notes that while newtechnology, alternative-fuelled aircraft are still some years away, the regional sector is likely to be their testing ground.
“One thing is absolutely clear, such technologies will come to smaller aircraft at least a decade before the segment in which most large lessors operate.
“For this reason, most lessors currently concur that sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is the only game in town that will materially move the sustainability needle in the next decade and possibly further than that.
“In our regional space, it is far more likely that viable new technology could be certified and available for commercial service within the next decade. This means that TrueNoord needs to prepare and adapt its business with this in mind, as everything in our industry has a long lead time.”
Tieleman is clear that positivity is a crucial weapon in winning the sustainability debate, particularly when it comes to the wider use of SAF.
“There is no room for pessimism on the pathway to net zero,” he continues. “The problem is not the SAF itself but the amount of SAF that is available for the industry, and we must not forget that we are not the only industry that has massive alternative fuel requirements.”
Managing risk and value of older aircraft
Tieleman pushes back on the idea that new aircraft are always the most sustainable choice, particularly when considering the full life-cycle.
“The current generation Embraer E1 aircraft are not old compared to mainline 737 and A320 models,” he says. “It would not be sustainable to retire these aircraft prematurely, particularly if one accounts for their life-cycle sustainability correctly in terms of, for example, materials used and recycling. From both an economic and sustainability perspective, these aircraft have at least a decade of useful life remaining.”
He adds that turboprops, even older ones, are efficient on short sectors and can meet high sustainability standards.
“Accordingly, from a TrueNoord risk and value perspective, we manage the majority of our aircraft as if each will have at least one more operator after redelivery from their current user. Of course, there are exceptions, where a sale for part-out may make more sense. For example, with the above-mentioned supply chain issues, we identified a case where it made more sense for us to sell two older aircraft to one of our lessees so that they could harvest the engines for their existing fleet.”
Catering for diverse regional markets
Tieleman says that every region of the world has its specific characteristics that are particularly important in its sector.
“Differences are not simply dictated by varying levels of economic prosperity but by physical geography constraints, climatic operating conditions, national regulatory constraints and different addressable markets.”
He explains the specific challenges of different markets, saying: “In Africa, we continue to see smaller national operators where politically motivated regulation sometimes precludes airlines from serving neighbouring countries. Such fragmentation often leads to weak financial performance at the individual operator level and, therefore, greater risk.
“TrueNoord approaches this with both risk-mitigation and support of such customers in mind. On the one hand, this requires more security. On the other hand, the relationships that we develop with key technical and commercial staff become paramount. In turn, this enables TrueNoord to share best practice with such customers.
“In Australia, our aircraft are principally deployed in special missions in support of mines in locations that are poorly accessible, or too far by any other means of transport. Whilst our customers are air carriers like any other, their customers are either large mining conglomerates or workers employed by them. In many ways, this reduces certain parts of commercial risk but increases technical and operational risk. The environment in such locations is frequently harsh, so that wear and tear on key components is usually greater.”
Fostering culture and innovation
Tieleman is proud of the company’s low staff turnover and incremental growth strategy. He says that collaboration and problemsolving are key to high-quality outcomes, adding: “We have below industry average staff turnover, and we grow our team incrementally so as not to imperil our company culture that we have spent many years developing.
“As any company grows its human resources, there is a greater risk of people acting in silos, either individually or as small teams. Collaboration and fostering a culture of owning and solving challenges are key to high-quality outcomes. Such collaboration is therefore key, and we take care that the people we recruit fit our corporate culture in that respect.
“However, a range of backgrounds, levels of experience and approaches to challenges and questions is equally important. We believe the fact that our team comprises more than a dozen nationalities, with many of the languages and cultures associated therewith, greatly enhances the company and builds a diverse and vibrant environment which our equally diverse global customer base relates to.”
Future of regional aviation and advice for airlines
Tieleman points out that regional aviation “has seen huge change over recent decades and is likely to continue to do so”.
He says: “If you go back to the 1990s, there LEADERSHIP PROFILE was a plethora of OEMs manufacturing regional aircraft between 19 and 100 seats (BAe, Fokker, ATR, Saab, Bombardier and Embraer).
“But the larger aircraft world had already coalesced around a Boeing and Airbus duopoly once McDonnell Douglas was absorbed into Boeing.
“Today, only Embraer and Airbus at the top end survive in the regional and small narrowbody segment, and ATR is currently a monopoly if new turboprops are required.
“The average size of regional aircraft has increased to what used to be the baseline narrowbody segment, and the majority of new turboprops are above 70 seats.
“However, new-technology aircraft, whether electric, hybrid or hydrogenpowered, could disrupt the segment and reverse the trend towards larger capacity aircraft if the necessary infrastructure becomes sufficiently available.”
Tieleman notes that these trends “have clear implications” for regional carriers, adding that it was vital to understand the direction of travel for the industry and define your role and ambitions accordingly.
“One piece of advice for airlines I would impart is don’t try to be all things to everyone. Just as TrueNoord will not grow into leasing mainstream Airbus and Boeing narrowbodies, regional carriers need to be the best at the role they perform.
“If you are a feeder to a major airline as a subsidiary or capacity purchase provider, optimise your fleet for that role, and that includes simplifying fleets to single types, although that could be different variants of the same aircraft type.”
Tieleman also advises against rushing to upgrade fleets in the short term for marginal gains when the indications are that transformational change may be just over the horizon.
He says: “Current generation regional aircraft are pretty efficient, so don’t rush to newer types for good incremental operating cost improvements unless the business case is bulletproof, as you may have to live with those choices for decades even if your fleet is leased for shorter periods. A next-generation quantum leap in propulsion technology will come, although probably later than was hoped only a few years ago.”
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Article courtesy of LARA Magazine
9 October 2025
