Can you buy a jet with cash?
Has anyone tried to offer to buy a jet for cash?
In the early days, did you sell?
I did have one instance. A twin turboprop airplane, and he wanted to lease it for a year. It was so funny because we were going to see the airplane with this guy. He was telling me that he was in the lobster business based out of Miami, and he was picking up a lot of lobsters from the Caribbean islands. Did that raise any alarms?
Interesting, you know. One day I said, "You know, I don't think that story is going to help, but listen, if you want to lease the airplane, we can go see the airplane." And they don't have credit? Maybe you pay for the payments up front or something like that.
We went and looked at the airplane. We left, and we were flying back. He goes, "I want to lease the airplane. I'll pay for a full year's lease up front." I said, "Okay, great. So send me the money."
He goes, "No, no." And he's flying his airplane, right? He reaches back literally and pulls out a briefcase from the back seat and he gives it to me.
"What's this?" I asked. He goes, "That's the lease payments."
"What are you talking about?"
I opened it up, and it was just piles of cash in there. So I'm like, "What do you want me to do? You want me to count this? I said I can't give them this cash." It's funny.