Method
Six gates, in order. Each one eliminates.
A structured aircraft tender looks like a commercial negotiation and behaves like a technical one. Most of the outcome is fixed before anyone discusses rent: by the engine bolted to the wing, by what falls due in the first two years of the term, by how many cycles the propulsor has run.
So we screen before we sell. The order below is not presentational. It runs cheapest-first, because the gates that cost nothing to check are also the ones that remove the most candidates. There is no sense paying for maintenance records on an aircraft that was disqualified by its dataplate.
The gates
- 01
Engine
Type and thrust rating, from the dataplate.
The cheapest gate and usually the most brutal. A single line in a specification can remove a third of the world fleet before anything else is considered, including every aircraft an owner assumed was a candidate.
Source · Public
- 02
Airframe
Gross weight, cabin configuration, seat count.
Rarely a hard filter on its own. More often a cost: a reconfiguration priced into the offer rather than a reason to walk away.
Source · Public
- 03
Maintenance status
Nothing heavy falling due inside the protected window.
The gate that actually decides. Heavy checks, landing gear overhauls and calendar-driven tasks are what make a young aircraft ineligible and an older one perfectly placeable. This data is not public, which is why screening on age instead of status produces the wrong shortlist.
Source · Subscription + owner disclosure
- 04
Engine condition
Cycles since new, life-limited parts, on-wing margin.
Engines carry the most scoring weight in most structured tenders, and none of it is negotiable, because it is a fact about the asset. This is where a bid is won before anyone opens the commercial terms.
Source · Owner disclosure
- 05
Records
Repairs, back-to-birth traceability, damage history.
An aircraft's value is its paperwork. A permanent-repair requirement or a gap in back-to-birth history can end an otherwise perfect candidate late, after real money has been spent.
Source · Owner disclosure
- 06
Availability
Lease expiry against the delivery window.
Last, deliberately. Availability is the first question everyone asks and the least useful one to start with. An available aircraft that fails gate 03 was never a candidate.
Source · Subscription
What the screen is not
Age is almost never the constraint.
Tenders routinely cap aircraft age, and the cap is routinely irrelevant: on a young type, every aircraft in existence passes it. Screening on age produces a shortlist that looks rigorous and contains the wrong aircraft.
Maintenance status is what binds. A nine-year-old airframe with nothing heavy due for three years is placeable. A four-year-old one facing a landing gear overhaul inside the protected window is not. Gate 03 is where candidates are really lost, and it is the gate that cannot be run from public sources.
