Spirit back in chapter 11

knot4u said:
When the engines go into the shop for scheduled inspections or repairs the turnaround time is horrendous for a number of reasons. What a company would normally do is rent an engine and install it to keep the airplane flying but there's no rental engines available either. Back when strictly doing engine changes paid for by the manufacturers engine program was my bread and butter it was very rare to remove an engine and just wait for it to come back. We would almost always install a loaner, that loaner did not normally come from the manufacturer, there are companies out there that own engines and no airplanes. They exist on just renting engines. My experience is all corporate/private/business jets but I'd imagine the same business model is used in the airline world. If a rental company looks at the bottom line and thinks they can profit from renting engines that are as hard to get as hens teeth and they have the capital to do it why not buy fairly new jets from a sinking company and remove the engines and sell the carcass to the highest bidder? As I said before I think long term the engine issues will get worked out but currently if you have a couple of those engines available for rent you can ask a very high premium, you'd be printing money short term and have the asset when the market settles down.
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The monthly rental cost from Turbomeca/Saffran for an interim Arriel engine of nearly any model, was indeed charged at a high premium, for the time that the owned engine was being overhauled and damage replaced. That was just base cost. There was additional charges per X amount of hours put on the engine while renting it. Much like mileage being charged when renting a car.

Insofar as the Spirit planes, looking across the runway from our hangar, the northwest scrapping area on the field is mainly scrapping 319s, but there’s a few 321s there too that seem to be getting parted out, along with 320s.
 
MikeD said:
The monthly rental cost from Turbomeca/Saffran for an interim Arriel engine of nearly any model, was indeed charged at a high premium, for the time that the owned engine was being overhauled and damage replaced. That was just base cost. There was additional charges per X amount of hours put on the engine while renting it. Much like mileage being charged when renting a car.

Insofar as the Spirit planes, looking across the runway from our hangar, the northwest scrapping area on the field is mainly scrapping 319s, but there’s a few 321s there too that seem to be getting parted out, along with 320s.
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Renting aircraft engines is an industry that most folks are unaware of. I once picked up a 731 at a facility miles away from the airport in Long Beach. It was basically a warehouse with a bunch of shipping containers/crates, stands and a short assembly line where the engines would come in, get uncrated and put in a stand, inspected, the fuel and oil systems would be drained and filled with preservative fluids and they'd go back in the crate, while that was happening the engine log books were being reviewed and updated and those books would go into the crate with the engine. There was nothing shady about it, they had a repair station license and A/Ps doing the work, the shop was clean and organized as was the office. Even folks like me who were out in the field would rarely get a chance to pull the curtain back like that, most of the time a big box would just magically appear at the hangar we were working in. I'm not claiming there wasn't any funny business on the money side of things but it was a legit engine shop from my end of things. There was also a long checklist of validation runs/inspections/checks that had to be completed before the rental engine was removed and shipped back with the proper logbook entries and supporting data.
 
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DropTank said:
Certain consumable parts are tin short supply
Specifically, the Pratt geared fan engines are still a year or 2 behind.
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Yeah but that’s the engines. They’re separate.

I guess as long as there’s no viable engine to hang on the wing then the airplane is only valuable as parts?
 
killbilly said:
Yeah but that’s the engines. They’re separate.

I guess as long as there’s no viable engine to hang on the wing then the airplane is only valuable as parts?
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After a certain amount of time, yes.
It also depends on the airplane config.
Spirit's design may vary enough to make it worthless to any other user(s), and many airlines can't be bothered.

Engines, avionics, landing gear, major components, APU, control services.
Quick money in engines and avionics.

With a PW1100 (I think), you can probably get a premium over the cost of new, simply due to a complete lack of availability.

Geared fans have been more trouble then they're worth.
 
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