10 Largest 2021 Travel Acquisitions Ripple Across Industry
Photo Caption: Pictured is an AerCap a320neo. The aircraft lessor participated in the largest travel acquisition of 2021.
Skift Take
Big names drove many of the top 10 travel mergers of the year. But among the largest deals, aircraft lessors, rail manufacturers and an online travel agency used the pandemic to scoop up infrastructure and technology to shore up their positions.
Pandemic opportunities fueled much of the mergers-and-acquisitions activity in travel this year, as buyers pounced on favorable valuations and sectors set for strong recoveries.
Among the top 10 deals were three that involved infrastructure or services for planes and trains, and the dealmakers were companies that your average traveler never heard of.
The biggest such deal saw Dublin-based AerCap, already the largest aircraft lessor in the world, acquiring a U.S.-based rival, GE Capital Aviation Services, for $30.7 billion in November. That deal, which saw GE grabbing $23 million in cash and a 46 percent stake in the merged companies in a bet on an aviation recovery, was roughly five times larger than the number two acquisition of the year.
In that second-biggest acquisition, France-headquartered Alstom bought UK-based Bombardie
