MRO Memo: Supply Chain Woes Fuel Neo Teardowns

Teardowns of relatively young Airbus A320neo aircraft are continuing, with Eirtrade Aviation becoming the latest company to buy aircraft for part-out.

The Irish company has acquired two six-year-old Airbus A320neo aircraft powered by Pratt & Whitney PW1127 GTF engines, which will be removed and sold along with APUs while airframe disassembly proceeds at the company’s facility in Knock, Ireland.

Another parts specialist, UK-based Aerfin, now has more than 6,000 A320neo components available after completing disassembly of six airframes—five in France and one in the Philippines.

Stock includes major structural assemblies, nacelles, APUs, landing gear and a broad range of rotables and consumables.

“A320neo operators are navigating sustained supply-chain pressures, and our role is to help them use the difficulty. By recovering material at scale and positioning it across our global network, we’re giving customers dependable access to the quality components they need to keep their fleets flying,” Aerfin CEO Simon Goodson said.

Aerfin plans to grow its A320neo inventory further following the acquisition of another three aircraft in November, a deal it is pursuing in conjunction with investment firm Turning Rock Partners.

Another British parts company tearing down A320neos is AJW Group, although at this year’s MRO Europe conference in London its chief commercial officer, Scott Symington, stressed that the driving force behind these actions was sky-high valuations and lease rates for their next-generation engines.

He described it as “somewhat perverse” for AJW to be parting out six-year-old Neos over aging A320s due to lessors being able to earn as much from the spare engines as they would from whole aircraft leases.

He also noted that the value of an A320 airframe—which shares significant commonality with the Neo—is based around only 100 parts, the rest usually forming surplus inventory for AJW.