Originally Posted by
BrianDromey
I think you are right, the aircraft will almost certainly fly again, at some point. The timing for the MAX is dreadful and will almost certainly result in many hundreds of cancellations. The same for the A320. Currently the NG's aren't really getting any older in terms of cycles or hours, being on the ground, in the main. Fuel prices are at historic lows, so that impacts the business case for new aircraft. Airlines are struggling to finance the fleets and debts they currently have, so adding new aircraft unless their current ones are totally clapped out will be expensive. Most NGs and early A320s are raging, but not beyond the point of being useful just yet, so airlines can afford to wait and see how the economy goes.
I think you're running the risk of applying the current situation and extending it to an indefinite time. This is the bottom of the pit, but things are bound to get better fairly soon, and indeed we are seeing a re-start in aviation. 2019-levels won't be reached until 2023, nothing disputes that, but even if 2021 was 50% of 2019 (and that would be HUGE) there would be a need to get new planes in. Ryanair, and with them a lot of the low costs, lease planes for the cycle of a D-check. Give it 5 or 6 years and they normally give it back: if that cycle starts finishing they need new planes. And yes, fuel might be low right now, but even with oil at $60 the savings of flying a LEAP over a, say, CFM56 are significant. There will be some cancellations and a lot of deferrals (some of those Vietnamese or Indonesian orders for 200+ frames look ridiculous) but will we see mass culls? I don't think so. Which makes it problematic for Boeing: come 2021, 2022, they must have something to sell or the airlines that have bought their MAXs will get the pitchforks out.