How Old Is Your Plane?

I’m concerned. It seems like common sense to me. I don’t get why others aren’t concerned. I’ve had eyes rolled at me for years whenever I bring this up, but I never had a blog before, so here goes…

Airplanes are old. And, it’s a new kind of old. We don’t really know how long a plane should last. It’s kind of new territory.

If a car gets old, and breaks down, that’s it. It breaks down. This is inconvenient, but not usually life threatening. If a plane has a mechanical issue, it’s likely to be found way up there. That’s trouble.

Today, this cnn.com article appeared, which is the first mention that I’ve seen, other than myself. Here are a couple of sentences:

The average age of the fleet of the seven large U.S. passenger airlines — including American, Alaska, Continental, the merged Delta and Northwest, Southwest, United and US Airways — is about 14 years old, according to The Airline Monitor.

It found American and Delta/Northwest had the oldest fleets, at about 16 years on average. As of the end of 2008, a small percentage of the merged Delta/Northwest’s planes dated back to the late 1960s.

I’ve got a 14-year-old car, and for the last 6 years or so, it’s been our “spare”. It doesn’t get driven much. But, if I had to depend on it, that would be a problem. The late 1960s??? Are you kidding me?

The article says that these planes are very well cared for and that the plane might be old, but the engines might have been replaced this year… MIGHT???

You can’t really compare planes to your car. Your car (probably) isn’t a commercial vehicle. However, taxis don’t last very long. According to this document, taxis must be replaced, by law, every 5 years (in NY). Why such a difference? It seems to me that the laws should be MORE stringent for planes. What am I not getting?

I think that it’s just a matter of time before a series of maintenance-related crashes happen.

Now you know what I think…