Question

Airline F leases all its aircraft under finance leases. Airline O leases all its aircraft under operating leases. Assuming that the two airlines report under US GAAP and are otherwise identical except for the mentioned lease classifications, which of the following comments is true?
a. Airline O has lower rent expense reported on its income statement
b. Airline F has a lower EBITDA margin
c. None of the listed answers
d. Airline O has more lease liabilities
e. Airline O has less lease assets at the inception of the lease

Answer 1

Answer: e. Airline O has less lease assets at the inception of the lease

Explanation:

With operating leases, the entity leasing the asset or the lessee, does not get the rights to ownership of the asset being leased but instead simply pay a fee or sort of rent for leasing the asset.

With a finance lease however, ownership is passed to the lessee for the lease period and the lessee would have to depreciate the asset and record it in its books.

Airline O will therefore not record any assets but Airline F will. This means that Airline F will have more assets than O because it had to record its assets but O did not.