Dry Leasing a Boeing 737-400F: What It Costs Beyond the Monthly Rent
The Boeing 737-400 freighter remains one of the most common entry points for a cargo airline that wants its own narrowbody. It carries around 20 tonnes on the main deck, it is simple to maintain, and there is a steady supply of converted aircraft coming off lease. For an operator with its own air operator certificate, a dry lease (aircraft only, no crew or maintenance) is often the cheapest way to add one to the fleet.
Cheapest, that is, if you read the whole quote. The monthly rent is the number everyone compares. It is rarely the number that decides the cost.
What a dry lease includes
In a dry lease the lessor provides the aircraft and nothing else. You supply the crew, maintain the aircraft under your own approved programme, insure it to the lessor's requirements and put it on your register or operate it under your certificate. The lessor's return comes from the rent, and its protection comes from the reserves, the deposit and the return conditions.
For how this compares with wet and ACMI leases, see ACMI vs dry lease vs wet lease.
The four parts of the price
1. Base rent
The fixed monthly amount for the use of the aircraft. It reflects the aircraft's age, condition and market value, the term, and the lessor's view of your credit.
2. Supplemental rent, or maintenance reserves
This is where most of the money sits. Reserves are paid monthly per flight hour, per cycle or per month, for each major maintenance event: airframe heavy checks, each engine's performance restoration and life limited parts, landing gear and the APU. On an older freighter flying short sectors, cycle based reserves can come close to the base rent.
Two questions matter:
Are the reserves reimbursable? You pay in, and when the maintenance event happens you claim back against the invoice. Or are they simply extra rent that stays with the lessor?
Is each reserve per line, so you can see what you pay for each engine, the airframe and the gear separately?
3. Surcharges
Some lessors add an environmental or geographic surcharge for operating in hot, sandy or high altitude conditions, on the basis that engines wear faster. It can be a one off fee or a higher reserve rate. Ask for the basis of any surcharge in writing. A large lump sum without a clear engineering rationale is a negotiating position, not a cost.
4. Security deposit
Usually one to three months of rent, sometimes in cash and sometimes as a letter of credit. Newer airlines should expect to pay at the higher end.
Territory
Every dry lease has a permitted territory: the countries you may fly into. It is driven by the lessor's insurance and by legal protection for repossessing the aircraft if something goes wrong. Countries that have ratified the Cape Town Convention, the international treaty that protects aircraft financiers, are easier to include. Send your full network with your request, including occasional destinations, so the lessor can confirm it before pricing.
Return conditions
At the end of the lease the aircraft must come back in an agreed condition: a set number of hours or cycles remaining to the next heavy check, engine margins, a minimum on life limited parts, and clean records. If it comes back short, you pay compensation. Read this section as carefully as the rent, because a generous rent with harsh return conditions moves the cost to the end of the lease.
What to ask for in every quote
To compare lessors fairly, ask each one to quote on the same four lines:
Base dry rent per month
Supplemental rent per line, and whether each line is reimbursable against invoiced events
Any environmental or geographic surcharge, and its basis
The permitted territory schedule
That makes it much harder for a lessor to show an attractive headline and recover the difference in the structure.
Timing
Converted freighters rarely sit parked for long. They move in portfolios from one lessee to the next, so the useful question to a lessor is not "what do you have today" but "what comes off lease in the next six to nine months". Starting the search early widens the choice considerably.
Working with Jetvice
We source narrowbody freighters on dry, wet and ACMI terms for cargo operators in Africa, the Middle East and beyond. Tell us your register, your planned monthly hours and cycles, the term and your network, and we will go to the owners and lessors who have aircraft coming free. Email info@jetvice.net, or see our aircraft leasing and narrowbody freighter pages.
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