Aircraft
Covid Brings Flood of Supply to Aircraft Recycling Business
The pandemic’s implications for aircraft recycling range from more momentum to paralysis.
Airliners sit in storage at Tarmac Aerosave grounds at Tarbes-Lourdes-Pyrenees Airport in France as an ex-Singapore Airlines Airbus A380 arrives in November 2017. (Photo: Tarmac Aerosave)
Airliners sit in storage at Tarmac Aerosave grounds at Tarbes-Lourdes-Pyrenees Airport in France as an ex-Singapore Airlines Airbus A380 arrives in November 2017. (Photo: Tarmac Aerosave)

Few would disagree that aircraft recycling has evolved from an almost non-existing, polluting industry to become a textbook example of how aerospace contributes to a circular economy and aviation’s overarching environmental sustainability goals. Depending on the type of aircraft, recyclers can recover about 90 percent of an aircraft's weight for reuse in aviation or other sectors, a level that Tarmac Aerosave CEO Patrick Lecer described as “fantastic.” The company, a joint venture of Airbus, Safran Aircraft Engines, and waste specialist Suez, has disassembled, dismantled, and recycled 291 aircraft and 141 CFM56 engines in an eco-efficient manner since its creation in 2007, including 75 percent of all the A340s that companies have recycled.


Loading…