This plane has massively contributed to the democratization of both air travel and air shipments. Considering that aircrafts are typically operated for decades, some 747 are likely to keep flying for the next 20/30 years.
That's is interesting. At some point there will be very few aircrafts of this model so servicing parts for them will become nightmarish as demand will be even more sparse than it is now meaning the parts rotation will slow down and carrying cost at some point will make it unprofitable for those remaining aircrafts to fly.
Indeed. Although, as aircrafts get dismantled, it tends to introduce a lot of spare parts into the market. Thus, most of the time, the parts of weaning aircraft types become cheaper despite the lack of production of parts. However, as you correctly point out, there are parts that become rare and very expensive, making the aircraft type economically unviable.
747 have been produced for 54 years. The one most notable evolution being the introduction of the fly-by-wire tech in the 1990s
https://www.flightglobal.com/boeing-747-x-flies-by-wire/6314.article
This plane has massively contributed to the democratization of both air travel and air shipments. Considering that aircrafts are typically operated for decades, some 747 are likely to keep flying for the next 20/30 years.
That's is interesting. At some point there will be very few aircrafts of this model so servicing parts for them will become nightmarish as demand will be even more sparse than it is now meaning the parts rotation will slow down and carrying cost at some point will make it unprofitable for those remaining aircrafts to fly.
Indeed. Although, as aircrafts get dismantled, it tends to introduce a lot of spare parts into the market. Thus, most of the time, the parts of weaning aircraft types become cheaper despite the lack of production of parts. However, as you correctly point out, there are parts that become rare and very expensive, making the aircraft type economically unviable.