NZFF

I suppose there is some method in this madness
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-sc ... s-64834924

Aye, sign of the times.
Not like the good old days.
And that's not even including everyone's favourite: the 80 year old Tourist DC-3

A sign of the times alright .... I was amused by the comment "EirTrade declined to reveal the identity of the owner of the two aircraft which are being scrapped, citing a confidentiality agreement, but it has been reported that they were formerly operated by Norwegian Air Shuttle."
Really? not too hard to tell who owned them

Splitpin wrote:A sign of the times alright .... I was amused by the comment "EirTrade declined to reveal the identity of the owner of the two aircraft which are being scrapped, citing a confidentiality agreement, but it has been reported that they were formerly operated by Norwegian Air Shuttle."
Really? not too hard to tell who owned them

Owners and operators can often be quite different companies. A lot of aircraft are owned by leasing companies.

yeah seems crazy dunnit .. and can see why some folks are getting excited about it.

Now, I am not an accountant (IANAA) but ... was just throwing some numbers together mostly out of my back passage but also using some mortgage planning tools (yes I am planning on buying a used 787 ) but basically 10 years seems a realistic period to pay off the purchase loan (assuming not leasing) and make a little profit, before you have to do an expensive D-check or engine overhaul etc.

Lets say, taking some very round numbers...

LOAN
- list price was ~ $120m (Norwegian were an early customer)
- a 10-year loan at say 6% would be a cool 1.3m/month to pay off, ~19m/year (across life of loan)

INCOME
- aircraft one long haul per day with avg. 95% occupancy (Norwegian used these for long haul)
- and say ~500usd per seat per day and say 330 days of active duty per year
- 500 x 330 x 320 (pax) = ~ 53m / year

OP COSTS
- hours per year = 330 x 8hrs (flight) = 2640
- lets say $11,000 per hour (fuel, insurance, maintenance)
- personnel costs (50 non-flying staff / aircraft @ 50k ea.) = $2.5m / year
- total op costs 11k x 2640 = $29m / year

so this is pretty loose but you can see how they could easily be clearing a handful of million per aircraft per year
ie 53 - (29 + 19 + 2.5) = $2.5m

sources :-)

https://myaircraftcost.com/boeing-787-8/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_Long_Haul
https://www.norwegian.com/globalassets/ ... report.pdf
https://www.calculator.net/loan-calcula ... zed-result

anyone else care to make a better informed loose stab at it?

edit: - added non-flying staff costs re suggestion from Mike and a ref to Norwegian's financial statement

deeknow wrote:yeah seems crazy dunnit .. and can see why some folks are getting excited about it....anyone else care to make a better informed loose stab at it?

Interesting numbers, although I am not in any way qualified to offer an opinion. It just seems daft that a 10yr old aircraft is already being parted out - who is going to buy the bits? Much of the tech stuff will already be obsolete, and as you say, the airframe will be owned by a leasing company, as will the engines. I won't be buying a used 787 to flog off for spares at a later date.
One set of numbers that are still in the memory bank (pre-Covid)
Each Virgin (Aust) flight had to feed about 60 non-flying staff.
For Ansett that figure was more like 160, due to top-heavy management. That's why Ansett went broke.

ATB
Mike

Thanks Mike, added non-flying staff costs re your comments, also a ref to Norwegian's financial statement where it looks like they have a much lower staff to airframe ratio, so I set it at 50 for now. Seems like their personnel costs are $700nok ($70usd) per year, across the 70 airframes so about $1m / year, the 50 staff I used makes it about 2.5m if earning $50usd ea on average, YMMV

Very odd. It will be interesting to see what happens to all the carbon fibre in the airframe. It’s not recyclable as far as I know.