Guide · 8 November 2026
How to invest in real assets — and where aviation fits
When markets feel abstract and volatile, many investors look to real assets: tangible things that exist in the physical world and earn their keep by being used. If you are weighing how to invest in real assets, it helps to see the whole menu — and where a newer lane, aviation, fits in.
What counts as a real asset
A real asset is physical and productive. The classic examples:
- Real estate — buildings that earn rent and can appreciate.
- Infrastructure — roads, energy, utilities that charge for use.
- Commodities — gold, metals, energy; a store of value, though they don't produce income.
- Equipment and transport — ships, rolling stock and aircraft: machines that earn while they work.
What they share is tangibility and a return driven by real-world activity, not purely by market sentiment. That is precisely why they are used to diversify a portfolio built mostly of stocks and bonds.
Where aviation fits
Aviation sits in the equipment-and-transport family, and it behaves like a real asset in the fullest sense: a specific aircraft, run by a certified operator, earns charter income while it flies and has a resale value at the end. Its drivers — flight hours, charter demand, the used-aircraft market — are largely their own, so it does not move in lockstep with property or listed markets. For a portfolio of alternatives, that low correlation is the point.
How it compares, in short. Versus real estate, aviation swaps rent for charter income and a building for a mobile machine; the ticket can be just as small through fractional investing. Versus commodities, it actually produces income rather than only holding value. We compare it head-to-head in our guide on aviation vs real estate.
The trade-offs to weigh
No real asset is risk-free. Real assets are generally illiquid — you cannot sell in a click — and each has its own risks: property has location and rates, aviation has charter cycles, maintenance and depreciation. Across all of them you can lose capital, and returns are targets, not guarantees. The sensible approach is to spread capital across projects and across lanes, so no single asset decides your outcome.
Getting started with aviation
Fractional, crowdfunding-style investing has made aviation accessible from a small ticket — you own a share of a specific aircraft held in its own company (an SPV). The full mechanics are in our complete guide to aviation investment.
Skynvest is being formed and pending authorisation from the CNMV, so you cannot invest yet — but you can be first in line.
👉 Join the waitlist for priority access.
The projects and figures shown are illustrative; we never make investment recommendations.