Alan Carr
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The lifespan of a plane can be something that confuses people – because planes don’t age the way that we are used to other things aging – it’s not about how many hours a plane is in the air – it’s about how often the airplane flies.
An aircraft’s age is not measured in ‘air miles’ the way a car’s engine is measured in miles – rather, it is measured by the number of pressurization cycles that it goes through. This is important information that is listed on sites listing airplanes for sale, such as https://www.globalair.com/aircraft-for-sale.
Each time an aircraft takes off or lands, the wings and fuselage will go through a lot of stress, and they can start to show damage. Short hops are more stressful, in real terms, than long haul flights – because a passenger jet that ferries business travelers back and forth and takes off and lands several times per day is going to go through more pressurization cycles than a commercial airliner that does flights across the ocean.
With bigger aircraft, the expected lifespan can be something between 40,000 and 111,000 cycles for aircraft that do long haul and short haul flights respectively. Bigger commercial aircraft can be reasonably expected to have a life-cycle limit of 30 years assuming that they are properly cared for. Private jets tend to have a slightly shorter lifespan, but typically cost less.
The average amount of flying hours for a private jet is around 448 per year – compared to 3,000 to as much as 4,000 for a commercial airliner. That’s a staggering amount of flight time. Some jet operators do get as much as 1,090 hours per aircraft, if they are busy and operating in areas where you can expect to see so many more people traveling.
The regulations for aircraft that carry goods are not quite as stringent as the regulations for aircraft that carry passengers, and as such those aircraft can keep flying for longer. It is not uncommon for passenger aircraft to be overhauled towards the end of their lifespan, given new engines, and then converted into delivery aircraft, since it is the bodies that are usually the issue when it comes to continued flight.
The maintenance requirements for a private jet are stringent, and those requirements, combined with the complications of storage, etc., mean that it usually makes more sense to rent than to buy. There are fractional ownership schemes where you have the opportunity to fly jets for quite a lot of time over the year, but you are not left holding the full bill for all of the expenses and repairs. For the vast majority of business owners this makes much more sense than buying outright, because the up-front cost of buying an aircraft alone is a huge expense, and while it will last many years, most people would prefer the flexibility of being able to change aircraft at a later date, and the ability to spread the cost. Will you really be using a private jet ten years from now, let alone twenty years or more in the future?