Aircraft Recycling and End of life have come into focus very recently. After accumulating thousands of flight hours, every aircraft will have to retire from the service due to various reasons as technical or economical. Here in this article we may focus on aircraft retirement and end of life due to economical reasons and provides an overview of aircraft recycling and end of life management.
An aircraft’s life cycle consists of different phases, a generally agreed way of categorizing is into five to seven phases such as material, design, supply chain, manufacture, transportation, aircraft operation, and end-of-life.
The end of life typically is the last phase of Aircraft life cycle management. It starts with the operator’s decision to withdraw the aircraft from the active fleet and followed by the decision of the aircraft owner to disassemble and dismantle the aircraft, as opposed to the other alternatives. The decision to dismantle mostly depends upon whether the value of aircraft in the dismantled condition is higher than it is in the flying condition.
The end-of-life stage of the aircraft’s life cycle was neglected for a long time. Thousands of retired aircraft have been stored in so-called aircraft graveyards, Planes were dismantled in huge areas and landfilling does not seem to be a suitable long-term solution for handling aircraft at their end-of-life stage, as there was an increased worldwide demand for raw material and secondary material. The amount of retired aircraft each year is increasing and landfilling does not seem to be a sustainable end-of-life alternative. Thus there was a need for ecological End of life management for aircraft, which on its objective is to avoid discard or reduce landfill.
The "End of life hierarchy" model is a heuristic approach widely accepted among practitioners. At the top of the hierarchy having waste prevention as the most favored option followed by re-use, recycling, recovery (e.g. energy recovery), and finally, discard (landfill of non-recovery waste) at the least favored option.
The End Of Life (EOL) process is divided into two phases, the first being removal of aircraft parts for reuse while aircraft having its certification and while the second phase is recycling and dismantling of aircraft once it loses its certification. EOL phases can also be approached as product recycling level and material recycling level. In this article, the approach on the basis of certification is preferred. The components/parts removed while having their certification status enters into the aviation supply chain as used parts. Other materials that were removed may get into the non-aviation business domain or declared as waste. This implies there is an involvement of three business domains (Aviation business, Non-aviation business, and Waste business).
The average retirement age of passenger aircraft around the world is 25 years. Recycling an airplane can avoid parking costs, minimize environmental impacts, make money from a part out and metal sales, and create new business opportunities. According to estimates, by 2030 the total number of aircraft that need to be recycled is between 12000 to 17000 airplanes, which will account for up to 45% (approx) of the global fleet. In line with this, the recycling business market is expected to reach USD 5.40 Billion by 2027 from 4.70 billion in 2019. The number of aircraft retirements will range from 700 to 2000 aircraft per year and depends on various factors including economic indicators.
Despite the lack of regulations or standards available to approach End of life, Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and associations have over period of time has introduced best practices in this business domain. Briefly mentioned, in the late ‘90s and early 2000s, Airbus and Boeing have introduced alternative approaches namely PAMELA (Process for Advanced Management of End-of-Life Aircraft) and AFRA (Aircraft Fleet Recycling Association) respectively. Today, it is generally recognized that 80% to 95% of an aircraft can be recycled. Between 40% and 50% of the weight of most dismantled aircraft finds its way back to the parts distribution pipeline and engines makes almost 80% to 90% of the value. As an approach towards the circular economy, manufacturers and operators are working towards the development of the 100% recyclable airplane.
By way of acknowledging the potential business scope in this segment, the government of India has recently revised the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FMEA) regulation, which now allows the export of planes in complete knocked-down or partial knocked-down conditions. This has paved the seed for a new business in India. Now, India can be a hub for aircraft recycling, a place for storage or resale of parts of dismantled aircraft, but it requires an industrial ecosystem to be in place to achieve it.
With all this, the important thing is that the industry needs to continue research on developing and implementing sustainable management practices to reduce environmental impacts and to create a sustainable industrial ecosystem.
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