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.
What makes you say that?
Like with all things that are complicated and have nuance, it is incapable of giving an answer that is useful.
Fuel expenses over the life of an aircraft are tricky because the life of an aircraft is defined by its number of cycles (take offs and landings) independent of the number of miles flown.
For short/medium haul aircraft like the A320neo, 48,000 cycles at 1,220km/cycle with 2.79kg of fuel used per km of flight, at $0.80 per kg for fuel means that the total spent on fuel during the life of the aircraft is just below the list price of the aircraft but slightly above what airlines actually pay for an A320neo.
For long haul aircraft like a 787-10 with the GEnx engines, 44,000 cycles at 10,240km/cycle with 6.12kg of fuel used per km of flight at $0.80 per kg for fuel means that the total spent of fuel during the life of the aircraft is over $2.26 billion, or roughly 8x the list price of the aircraft.
Neither 0.8x-1.25x nor 8x are "2-3x". Looking at financial reports, for no US airline does it even average out to 2-3x.
But those were fuel prices 3 years ago, today they're half that.
Tomorrow they might be double.
All of this ignores the fact that "the planes themselves are..." doesn't limit the dollar amount to the initial purchase cost.
It also ignores the fact that some aircraft are leased, and others are major capital expenditures so the total costs for the same aircraft at the same company can vary greatly. Airlines typically report the "cost" of their aircraft as CASM-ex, or cost per available seat mile excluding fuel so the "price" of an airplane over its lifetime is CASM-ex + fuel and fuel is currently around 25% of the CASM-ex of the three largest US airlines.
Every single aircraft type has different costs that can vary widely.
A useful non-bullshit response from an A"I" would start with "For what kind of aircraft?"
FWIW, I gave ChatGPT the size of aircraft as discussed in the OP article. But I didn't grill it for details, just wanted a general idea if the article's statement was even close to accurate.
I was hoping someone would come along and bring more nuance and knowledge to the discussion. So, thanks. :)
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.
A321 planes mentioned have orders in thousands. And that is a lot for a plane. So well executed plane fulfilling design criterias certainly seem like reasonable mainstay.
Plus, it would be a new type and airlines would end up with hybrid fleets, increasing logistics costs (spare parts stocks, retraining of mechanics, pilots who couldn't readily switch between new and old planes and probably more).
In short, not a compelling proposition for anyone involved.
cratermoon•9mo ago