The domestic passenger airline industry in the US is already in trouble. With the drop in travel thanks to the administration's antics and tariffs on foreign goods, expect serious turbulence.

> Since, as you might imagine, the planes themselves are an airline's biggest expenditure...

Is that true?

I'd have expected that, over the course of the life of a plane, the costs to fuel, maintain, or pay the humans associated with it's flights would be bigger than the initial purchase cost.

Edit: ChatGPT thinks fuel is the biggest expense at 2-3x the original purchase price over the life of the aircraft.

So rent the A321 instead of buying them? The tariffs apply to goods not services.

The US population is about 4% of the worldwide population.

Anybody who thinks that the aviation industry does or doesn’t do anything significantly different because of something that touches 4% for 4 years is probably in the market for some Ilyushin 96’s.

I would like to know why Boeing didn’t have a replacement ready when the 757 stopped being produced. I realize commercial planes are not consumer goods, but 2004 still seems like a long time ago. Thus I imagine having a 757 replacement sooner was the plan, so what derailed it?