International Lease Finance Corp. said late Monday that it had an agreement to sell 53 aircraft for $1.98 billion to Australia’s Macquarie Aerospace Ltd., an indirect subsidiary of Macquarie Group Ltd.

ILFC, a Century City subsidiary of American International Group Inc. said the sale came in under the $2.3 billion book value of the planes. The deal is part of a larger effort on the part of AIG to pay back the U.S. government after a $182 billion bailout.

ILFC leases and remarkets commercial jet aircraft to airlines around the world, and now owns a portfolio of about 1,000 jet aircraft. Alan Lund, who became ILFC’s chief executive after the recent departure of co-founder Steven Udvar-Hazy, said the sale was another indication of the unit’s viability.

“ILFC’s ability to accomplish significant aircraft sales, together with our recent successes in the financial markets, where ILFC raised over $4 billion in new secured and unsecured financing, strongly demonstrates (its) ability to generate liquidity and de-lever its balance sheet,” said Lund in a press release.

The aircraft are mostly Boeing 737’s and Airbus A320’s. Most of them will be used by Macquarie Bank Ltd, with six going to an aircraft leasing unit jointly owned by Macquarie and Och-Ziff Capital Management.