What happens to the actual aircrafts the airlines retire?
Airlines retire planes from service in order to bring a new fleet, what happens to these aircrafts?
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- They go to a dump if they're not airworthy. There's a huge one somewhere in Arizona, if I'm not mistaken, after all useable gear is removed for recycling. Avionics, seating, engines and various other components are usually cannibalized and reused. If they are airworthy, they usually are sold to private companies to be used as corporate aircraft. Occasionally, they go to museums as models of noteworthy accomplishment.
- Same thing they do with cars, just more expensive. They scrap salvagable parts, or try to sell the aircraft to a smaller company or independent airport if it still meets the aircraft standards. Even try to sell them to other companies out of country. It would be cool though if they put them on ebay or craiglist! how awesome would that be!
- What happens depends on if there is any useful life left in the airframe. If the airframe has reached it's useful life in pressurization cycles, it's usually sold for scrap metal. Metal fatigue is not something you do not want in a jetliner, (remember Aloha flight 243, the "flip top 737"? http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/1989/AAR8903.htm ) so after a "service life of 20 years", a generalization that figures 51,000 flight hours and 75,000 pressurization cycles, it is scrapped. Click this link to read the "life story" from birth to death of a 737-200 in "End Of The Line - Scrapping an Airliner" at the very bottom of this page: http://www.projectb737ng.com/history.htm Airliners can be "retired" from a carrier fleet well before that if they no longer have a need for that aircraft in their fleet too. If the jet does not meet noise or EPA standards anymore, (like the 727 and first generation 737s with old Pratt & Whitneys) they are may be exported to other countries or have their engines fitted with special kits to meet standards. They are then sold or returned to their lessor to be leased by other operators, often finding a new life with a freight company or with an airline in Africa or Asia. It may also be the case that the engines or other parts are worth something while the airframe itself is not, so it is stripped for parts then scrapped. If you really want to SEE what happens here is the scrapping process on video- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtLcQuG-FaQ&mode=related&search= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDygqc5iAb4 Here is a listing of sites about the more popular "aircraft boneyards", many with online photo collections- http://www.johnweeks.com/boneyard/ http://www.airchive.com/SITE%20PAGES/VINTAGE.html http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/history/q0030a.shtml BTW- It's not just retired aircraft that are "moth balled" or stored. Sometimes new aircraft are deferred airline deliveries and the manufacturer or lessor sends them to a dry climate until they have an entry to service date: http://www.airliners.net/open.file/0830922/M/
- Airplanes are sometimes flown to the Mojave Desert (near Barstow, between L.A. and Vegas) where the engines are capped and various parts removed. This also happens when the airlines just plain cannot afford to put them on a route. Some are sold to poor South American based companies (DC-8's , 707's and any without hush kits were popular for awhile.)
- they are carried to a depot and there they are dismantled for recycling purposes or used as spare parts (where it is allowed by local CAA offices)
- Cars have junkyards. Aircraft have boneyards.
- Sometimes it is sent to Arizona for storage and sometimes it is cut up and sold as scrap.
