Airlines Are Scrapping Four-Year-Old Jets as Engine Shortage Bites

An Airbus A320neo built in July 2022 for Spirit Airlines was stripped for parts worth millions and crushed with an excavator this May — less than four years after it left the Mobile, Alabama factory line. Industry executives told CNBC that more aircraft are being dismantled years, if not decades, earlier than expected, driven by a shortage of parts, above all engines, that has exasperated airlines and pushed up costs.

Even after the engines come off, firms harvest everything from landing gear to antennae for resale. It was bright yellow, built for Spirit, and parked in storage because of an engine recall until it was torn apart at a facility on the outskirts of Phoenix.

"It's the first time in my career that involved purchasing an aircraft that's less than five years since date of manufacture," said Bill Thompson, vice president leading aircraft and engine acquisition for the Americas at EirTrade Aviation, the aviation asset management and trading firm that bought the A320neo earlier this year. He said the company paid "single-digit" millions each for that plane and a similarly aged one, and expects to profit from selling more than 1,000 parts taken off them before they were crushed. "I don't know if you're going to sell the coffee makers but you never know. Sometimes you do," he said.

How young are the jets being scrapped?

Twenty-one newest-generation aircraft were torn down from June 2025 through this past August, according to aviation data and advisory firm IBA Group. The scrapped planes averaged 6.4 years old and included mostly Airbus but also some Boeing aircraft. That compares with an average retirement age for narrow-body airplanes of 21.7 years, IBA said.

"Anytime that you end up with any period of market softness in aircraft availability, engine availability, it's going to cause investors to look at other options," said Simon Goodson, CEO of AerFin, which buys, sells, repairs and leases aircraft and parts. "We always say to our aircraft and engine traders, 'Please don't fall in love with the metal.'"

Hundreds of aircraft retire every year as manufacturers ramp up production and airlines swap older jets for newer, more fuel-efficient models. But some owners no longer want to wait for parts or repairs on younger jets.

"A year might not sound that long, but does three or four years?" said Dave Querio, CEO of Ascent Aviation Services, the Marana, Arizona company that repairs, modifies, stores and disassembles aircraft. "That's the issue for the aircraft that came in in '23, '24 and '25." In some cases owners reap more from parts than from selling the plane or paying storage while it waits to fly again. Querio said he hasn't seen "the volume of younger aircraft being torn down as I'm seeing today."

Why is the engine market so hot?

Cutting-edge engines that burn hotter and use less fuel are coming up for maintenance far earlier than airlines expected. Repair and overhaul shops are backed up, from facilities owned by GE Aerospace and RTX unit Pratt & Whitney to smaller independents, and airlines and lessors are hunting for spares anywhere they can.

The secondhand parts market has heated up accordingly. An engine fan blade could cost $50,000, or more than $100,000 for bigger jets, Goodson said. Engines powering some Airbus A320neo aircraft carry 20 of those blades; an engine disc runs between $1 million and $2 million.

A Pratt & Whitney engine recall issued in 2023, after the manufacturer found contaminated powdered metal used in some parts, has backed up repair shops and grounded hundreds of Airbus planes worldwide. Spirit Airlines bore the brunt in the United States, years before it collapsed. Those engines are worth close to $17 million this year at the high end, up 60% from the top of the range in 2019, according to IBA.

Airlines are pulling engines off retired planes to keep current aircraft flying while their own engines sit in the shop. "So you're just playing Legos and moving engines on and off aircraft," said Mike Stengel, a partner at aerospace consulting firm AeroDynamic Advisory.

Purchase and rental prices for these popular engines have hit records. Renting one runs about $160,000 to $180,000 a month, according to IBA data. The competing CFM International engine for the A320neo family — a joint venture of GE Aerospace and France's Safran — rents in a similar range of $130,000 to $180,000 a month.

What happens to Spirit's stored fleet?

The young-retirement problem predates Spirit's collapse. The four-year-old jet crushed outside Phoenix in May was stored because of the recall and stayed parked until teardown. Spirit's demise has now pushed more of its Airbus fleet onto the market, forcing owners to weigh the wait for engines against selling parts.

When CNBC visited AerSale's Goodyear, Arizona facility in late June, less than two months after Spirit collapsed, dozens of idle yellow planes sat in the desert sun. Former Spirit captain Glenn Zecchin, now flying corporate jets, stopped by to ask about ferrying the aircraft and to see his old fleet. "I knew the airplanes were there, and I wanted to see what happened," he said. One stored jet still had Spirit in-flight menus, safety cards in the seatbacks and pilot manuals in the cockpit.

Not all of these aircraft will be destroyed. Some owners will sell parts only, some will keep planes in storage, and others may fly again for new carriers — potentially swapping Spirit's tight 28-inch seat pitch for something roomier. Desert storage, chosen for its arid, corrosion-limiting climate, can last decades, and the fees vary by aircraft type.

"After you get rid of all the valuable equipment and sell it back into the aftermarket, what's really left is just a metal carcass that you will literally take a crane and crush," said Stengel. The owner can "sell it to recyclers that will make of it what they will, maybe into beer cans or something outside of aerospace." Querio called the teardowns "a little melancholy to watch at times," but added: "sometimes, it's kind of a thrill to ... see how fast an aircraft can be crunched up and sent off to the smelter." As long as engine backlogs persist, the crush rate for young jets is likely to stay elevated.