There's no airframe cannibalisation going on, that would required retiring an aircraft. AFAIK they just have a few sitting around waiting parts like just about every airline does, covid slowdowns and the rest, I heard engines have been a little slow through overhaul or something along those lines. Its not unusual to pull serviceable stuff off the waiting stuff to keep the operating ones, well, operating. As I alluded to earlier Rex modifies the SAABs all the time, lots of in house experience and a close working relationship with SAAB group means they can get 'new' parts approved for older things going obsolete. Something rare in airlines these days. Link has spruced up their SAABs as well, you'll see them operating until they hit a hard airframe life limit, which seems around 15+ years away yet.

There was no plan for the ageing 767 fleet, then they were grounded, and the rest is history.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/f...07-p58pjg.html

Airlines get an average of a 50% discount on the list price anyway. If you have good negotiators and a bulk order you can command even more, especially if they made a good deal whilst the Covid lull for orders was in effect. It is a substantial figure and for a columnist in a financial newspaper to miss something I discovered with 5 seconds of googling doesn’t reflect well on that columnist.

So it’ll be nowhere near $28 billion USD for a full fleet replacement. Even with that figure I’m not sure how the columnist came out with it. $8.4 and $4.2b for the 321 and 350, if they replaced all 330s with 787-9 (a bit of overkill) that’ll only be $7.9b. Which adds up to $20.5b not $28b. Which they wouldn’t even be paying.

The 737 will still be around til middle 2030s so won’t need to be replaced all at once, the 380s have some life left in them and the 330 orders can be spaced out too.

The fleet renewal is going to take some skill to fund properly but it’s not going to be as daunting as he’s making it out to be.

I don't think you get the point that in the airline business fleet renewal is ongoing, not lump sums and done. Jets are not made to last economically more than 15-20 years, 737s are trashed by 10 years in service, so by the time you are getting deliveries of one fleet you need to be actively purchasing the next otherwise you fall behind the 8 ball. If its going to be $10 bill now, it will be another $10 bill to replace that 10 years later and so on and so on, add inflation etc.... The other option is cheap lease 2nd hand so the lower lease offsets the higher operating cost of an older aircraft. But then you have to have 2nd hand available and cheap. I am oversimplifying what is a very complicated decision and there is a myriad of options in-between ownership and leasehold, new and old, etc... but the unifying equation involves a lot of cost.

What has happened with QF is that the fleet replacement has been delayed to stump up the balance sheets a few years running. That means there is a reckoning point where it needs to be addressed.

I'll bet right now that point in time will coincide with Joyce's retirement.

Not delayed. The 737 and 330 fleets will keep flying at full strength until they hit 22 years, serviceability and dispatch rates are still quite high. Then replacement by the 321 and probably more 787s. My point was that for a supposed financial journalist his "rough estimate" of 28 billion for the needed fleet replacements over the next decade was way off. I'll even throw in a dozen more A350s to replace the 380s (the 12 ordered are for expansion), and for a list price total of around $24 billion USD you can get 24 A350s, 26 789s, and 75 A321X. But given the discounting that was going on before Covid QF, if they got the deal right during the times when manufacturers would've been desperate, can expect to pay about $10 billion for all those aeroplanes over about the next 12-13 years.

No chance of a major discount at Airbus, I've heard there's not much fleet discount on them at all, and a massive backlog on orders. A320 series is backlogged about 6000 airframes, about 500 on the A350. Boeing is another matter, more to do with the Max woes than Covid, that said the Max is still backlogged a few thousand.

If you placed an Airbus order today you would be lucky to see the aircraft within 10 years, and that's at airframe production rate. Latest news is engine production is falling way behind airframe production so a number of engine-less bodies sitting around, which also doesn't bode well if you need a spare engine quick. VA found out about that dilemma with the E-Jets, when a few sat around months waiting on unscheduled engine changes.

Regardless of the accuracy of the figures in the article, it will be a fine balancing act to retain enough share price growth to satisfy the major shareholders whilst conducting a necessary substantial fleet renewal across a new CEO's initial tenure. Should those major shareholders lack confidence in Joyce's replacement having the ability continue growing the share price, the whole show could become very untidy very quickly.

The other issue on the international front is that most airlines now are well into the A350 phase of operation. By the time QF gets theirs, the next new Airbus will be out and the local competition will be operating that. Whatever financial edge QF hoped to gain by delaying renewal is being blown out of the water by competition having a % advantage in operating costs. Another sad fact that accountants make very poor airline bosses in the long run... cost cutting only works so far, then the cuts cost you more than if you kept up with the competition.

I mean seriously, Fiji Airways is operating brand new A350 and 737 Max right now...

No plan?! There was a fleet rejuvenation plan for the 767s under way when the whole show went t*ts-up in 2001. That plan saw newer aircraft like -BZL and -BZM, and even brand new aircraft like -BZF, being acquired.

The grounding was over maintenance non-compliance issues, not aircraft age.

The board vetoed the 767 replacement as too costly. The reason the 767 fleet was grounded was that they were triaging maintenance so much they started to ignore bulletins and finally got caught out with a number of required items being missed. The whole reason it was so stretched is that the board would not even approve temporary replacements whilst the 767s went off for deep maintenance that required them to be sent O/S. So engineering kept them flying no matter what.

It's worth having a read of how AirNZ bungled the whole thing by being greedy when they could've had a very viable airline partnered with SQ. But the Kiwi idea of partnership is that they make all the decisions and SQ just pumps in 35% with no board positions.

BTW I had dealings with the Melbourne maintenance facility in the 90s and 2000, and not long before administration was shown the empty spaces where previously there were engines and stocks that had mysteriously disappeared across the ditch.

Pelair A model freighters are being parted

If so a lot of the A model is not compatible with the B model, so the cannibalisation is not for airline use. Engines, gear, electrics, even airframe parts are different, different leading edges and stab sections. There's some commonality but not really any of the expensive useful stuff. Pelair only has 3 I think, not sure, but thought most of the As got sold off O/S. The similarities would be like trying to fix ATR-72 with ATR-42 parts, and since one of those crashed when the wrong fuel sensor unit was installed they made the parts completely incompatible.

I don't need to read about it, I was there with a front row seat as the whole Brierley-Cushing run train-wreck unfolded.