Airbus A320neos Are Being Scrapped at Just 3 Years Old. Rented Out Separately, Their Two Engines Earn More Than the Whole Jet.

A shortage of Pratt & Whitney’s newest engines has made some of them worth more on their own than bolted to the airliner they were built for.

On September 11, 2026, French aircraft recycler TARMAC Aerosave said it will dismantle more than 10 Airbus A320neo and Boeing 737 MAX family jets for parts trader AerFin before the end of the year. Both types are still in production, and the stated reason is demand for their engines and parts.

Some of the jets already broken up had barely been broken in. Two former Spirit Airlines A320neos stripped in Goodyear, Arizona, this year were three and four years old, which asset manager EirTrade called the youngest airframes ever scheduled for teardown.

The reason is rent. In October 2025, data firm Cirium put the rate for a single spare Pratt & Whitney GTF engine at about $200,000 a month, which Reuters noted is at least as much as a whole plane with engines earns.

Pratt & Whitney’s engine problems grounded a third of the fleet

Every A320neo leaves the factory with one of two engines: CFM International’s LEAP-1A or Pratt & Whitney’s PW1100G geared turbofan, known as the GTF. The GTF powers at least 40 percent of A320neos in service, according to Reuters.

Its durability problems started early. India’s Go First, which flew Pratt-powered A320neos, said its share of aircraft grounded by engine issues climbed from 7 percent in December 2019 to 50 percent in December 2022.

Go First filed for insolvency on May 2, 2023, blaming what it called Pratt & Whitney’s “failing engines” after grounding 25 jets, about half its A320neo fleet. Pratt & Whitney replied that the airline had “a lengthy history of missing its financial obligations.”

Later in 2023, the problem spread far beyond one airline. Pratt & Whitney disclosed a rare condition in the powder metal used to make certain engine parts, and parent company RTX said in September 2023 that 600 to 700 extra engine removals would follow through the end of 2026.

Engines that come off early join a queue at the overhaul shop, and the jets they leave behind sit. By October 2025, Cirium counted 636 GTF-powered Airbus jets, a third of that fleet, grounded or in storage. For jets with CFM engines, the figure was 4 percent.

Go First’s jets became the first wave of neo teardowns. Of the 11 A320neos Cirium had recorded as parted out by August 2025, all but one came from the collapsed airline, most of them built between 2016 and 2018.

TARMAC Aerosave has already stripped four former Go First A320neos for AerFin at its plant in Tarbes, France. Each one released around 1,400 high-demand parts into the aftermarket.

Two engines out-earn the jet they came from

The clearest numbers come from two six-year-old Airbus A321neos, the stretched member of the family. IndiGo returned them to their lessor when the lease ended, and in 2025 they were sold to Setna iO for teardown in Spain. New, each was valued at more than $120 million.

Cirium’s market rates put the rent on an A321neo at around $350,000 a month. Rob Morris, head of consultancy at Cirium Ascend, estimated that each of its two engines, rented separately, could fetch about $230,000 a month.

That is $460,000 a month for the pair, before a single seat, wheel or avionics box is sold. Morris valued each engine at $15.2 million to $21.4 million, and the whole jet, broken up, at $45 million to $56.5 million depending on engine condition.

The rest of the jet still sells. After the engines, buyers want auxiliary power units, landing gear and flight controls, KP Aviation chief commercial officer Scott Butler told Reuters in May 2026. “There’s a lot of money in the engines,” he said. “The airframes, there may not be as much appetite.”

Then supply jumped. Spirit Airlines stopped flying on May 2, 2026, with 114 Airbus A320-family aircraft, 66 of them leased. Court filings showed lessors owned about 30 of its GTF-powered jets and another 17 of its GTF engines.

Why a jet built to fly for 25 years is scrapped at six

An A321neo is expected to fly for 20 to 25 years. The oldest A320neos only turned 10 this year, since Airbus delivered the first one to Lufthansa in January 2016.

Airlines, meanwhile, say they are short of aircraft after years of delivery delays and are keeping older planes flying longer. In October 2025 the A320 family overtook Boeing’s 737 as the most-delivered jetliner.

“It tells you something is seriously wrong,” Willie Walsh, head of the International Air Transport Association, told Reuters that month. IATA had just estimated supply disruption would cost airlines $11 billion in 2025, $2.6 billion of it in engines alone.

The paradox resolves once you follow the engines. They are not being scrapped. They come off one airframe so a different grounded jet can fly again.

“We are seeing some of the GTF engines from the Spirit A320s being removed from the airframes and leased out to customers to support (aircraft on the ground),” Austin Willis, chief executive of Willis Lease Finance, told Reuters in May 2026.

The airlines waiting for those engines pay heavily. Air New Zealand said Trent 1000 and PW1100 engine problems cost it an estimated NZ$190 million in its 2026 financial year, helping push the airline to an annual loss.

Critics trace the root cause to how the engines were designed. Every new engine balances fuel efficiency against durability, one of the hardest trade-offs engine makers face. “They went too fast and the engines had great improvements in efficiency but they failed on maintenance,” aviation economist Adam Pilarski told Reuters.

More teardowns are already booked for 2027

The September 11 batch brings Boeing into the picture. TARMAC said strong demand for next-generation engines and parts is putting a growing number of A320neo and Boeing 737 MAX family jets on the teardown list.

“With more than 10 aircraft projects again this year for AerFin, this collaboration confirms our position as a leading player in the dismantling and recycling market,” said TARMAC chief commercial officer Christian Ceruti. The two companies are already preparing new projects for 2027.

Pratt & Whitney says the worst is passing. RTX reported in July 2026 that grounded PW1100-powered jets were down 25 percent since January, as repair shop output rose more than 40 percent from a year earlier and turnaround times fell 23 percent.

Its upgraded GTF Advantage engine is now certified and delivering to Airbus. It is designed to double the time an engine stays on the wing, with full production switching over to it in 2028.

The hardest-hit airlines are less optimistic. Wizz Air, IndiGo and Volaris do not expect the groundings to end before the end of 2027, and elevated numbers could drag into 2028, Leeham News reported in July.

Buyers have not walked away from the engine. In July 2026, British Airways picked the GTF for up to 63 A320neos, 33 of them firm, backed by a 12-year Pratt & Whitney maintenance deal.

Until the shop queues clear, the most valuable thing on a young A320neo is the pair of engines under its wings. The airframe is the part that gets left behind.