Pioneered during the emergency conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic, export credit agency (ECA) guarantees for engine maintenance are becoming increasingly popular.
Within aviation, export credit is typically associated with new aircraft sales, but ECA guarantees on both sides of the Atlantic are now also using it to help airlines finance costly engine maintenance.
The latest deal is between Avianca, GE Aerospace and the Brazilian Agency for Managing Guarantee Funds (ABGF)—which manages the country’s export credit program—for the maintenance of Avianca's CFM International CFM56 engines at GE Celma in Brazil.
“By supporting transactions such as this one, ABGF helps strengthen the international presence of Brazilian companies and contributes to expanding Brazil's participation in global aerospace value chains,” ABGF President Maíra Madrid said.
While there was a cross-border element to that deal, earlier this summer the ABGF also guaranteed financing for engine work for Brazilian carrier Gol at the same facility. Gol and Avianca are both part of Abra Group.
This was not the first time Gol has tapped Brazilian export credit for work inside the country. In 2024, an ECA-developed credit insurance policy allowed it to seek a third-party credit line of up to $209 million to finance maintenance of its CFM56-7B engines.
Meanwhile, earlier in 2026, UK Export Finance (UKEF) agreed with GE Aerospace to guarantee up to $1 billion of engine maintenance at GE’s shops in Wales and Scotland. That financing is available to “qualifying customers.”
This follows smaller transactions at the start of the pandemic in 2020, when the U.S. Export-Import Bank revealed it had supported roughly $40 million worth of engine maintenance work during the year through three deals led by UKEF.
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