NBAA to Honor Steven F. Udvar-Hazy with Meritorious Service to Aviation Award at 2026 NBAA-BACE
Why It MattersHonoring a leasing-industry founder alongside education and museum philanthropy signals how business aviation ties its highest recognition to figures who shaped aircraft finance, training and public heritage beyond operators alone.
What happened
The National Business Aviation Association will present its Meritorious Service to Aviation Award, first bestowed in 1950, to Steven F. Udvar-Hazy at the 2026 NBAA-BACE, scheduled for October 20-22. The presentation will take place on the show's Horizon Stage and will include a live conversation between Udvar-Hazy and Ross Perot Jr., himself a past recipient of the same award.
Udvar-Hazy co-founded International Lease Finance Corporation (ILFC) in 1973 and later founded Air Lease Corporation after leaving ILFC in 2010. Born in Budapest, Hungary, he fled to the United States with his family in 1958 following the Soviet reoccupation of the country. He took his first flight in a Piper Cub at age 15 and began formal flight training a year later at what is now Whiteman Airport (WHP) near Los Angeles, earning his first jet type rating in 1978. He holds more than 11,000 hours total flight time, including more than 9,000 hours as captain in multi-engine jets, has been a certificated FAA airline transport pilot for 37 years, and is type rated on the Gulfstream IV, V and G650, Learjets, and the Cessna Citation CE500 and CE680 families. He has trained annually with FlightSafety International since the 1980s.
Udvar-Hazy has also supported the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center at Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD), which opened in December 2003 and houses the Space Shuttle Discovery among hundreds of aircraft and spacecraft, including a business aviation exhibit featuring Bob Hoover's Rockwell Shrike Commander. He also supports the Christine and Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Library and Learning Center at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University's Prescott, Arizona campus, and funds scholarships at Embry-Riddle and Purdue University through the International Society of Transport Aircraft Trading Foundation. NBAA President and CEO Ed Bolen said, "His story is one of vision, perseverance and extraordinary impact. NBAA is pleased to recognize his lifelong dedication to innovation, entrepreneurship and service."
Industry impact & what to watch
Business aviation's marquee gathering uses its top honor to link the show floor to the people who built the financial infrastructure behind aircraft fleets, and Udvar-Hazy's career as an aircraft-leasing founder is a reminder that operator access to jets depends as much on leasing capital as on manufacturing output. Pairing him on stage with Ross Perot Jr., a past recipient, also underscores how the award functions as a continuing conversation among a small set of figures the association treats as having shaped the industry's direction.
The award ceremony itself sits inside NBAA-BACE's broader October 20-22 program, so its main visible marker ahead of the show will be how NBAA and Udvar-Hazy frame that Horizon Stage conversation once the event approaches.
