Aviation Week has a story about the scrapping of relatively young aircraft. There has been a long-running debate over whether the useful lives of aircraft have been shrinking. The focus has been on the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737NG families, though some attention has also been paid to twin-aisle aircraft.

Historically useful lives have been 25-35 years for operation by passenger aircraft before potential cargo conversion, if at all.

With the forthcoming re-engined single-aisles, there has been a lot of speculation that the useful lives will be sharply reduced, and there have been several examples of early scrapping of early-model A320s and some but not as many of 737NGs. Lessors are particularly sensitive to the prospect of shorter useful lives due to the depreciation curve assumptions. Irish lessor Avolon even held an international webcast on the topic. Boeing has published a white paper on it. Both companies argued there has been no change.

Thus, the Aviation Week story is of interest.

Separately, here are a couple of stories following Day 2 of the NTSB hearing on lithium batteries. The hearing on the Japan Air Lines Boeing 787 fire will be April 23-24.

The Seattle Times-a report from Day 2.

Seattle P-I: A crash every two years.

Reuters: FAA sees lessons