This month marks the 50th anniversary of GE Capital Aviation Services’ first transaction. That first deal was a lease agreement for three DC9-30s to Allegheny Airlines in 1967.

Since then, GECAS has become the aviation financier with the largest aircraft fleet of any lessor and the largest and most global team in the industry, serving the largest range of customers in aviation.

It was not until 1983 that GE Capital registered its first non-U.S. lease, which was to Swiss Air. Six years later, in 1989, the purchase of Chemical Bank’s portfolio expanded GE Capital’s global business, which eventually led to the merger of T&I’s Aviation Group, Polaris Aircraft Leasing and GPA into GECAS in 1994. GECAS would go on to purchase PK Finance (2000), The Memphis Group (2006) and Milestone Aviation Group (2015) and was ranked the world’s top lessor by Air Finance and Airline Economics in 2016.