A nearly new Spirit Airlines jet was shredded by the claws of a heavy-duty excavator in a video that transfixed audiences this weekend.
The four-year-old A320neo met an end as ugly as the iconic budget carrier that collapsed three weeks before, and N950NK isn’t the only former Spirit aircraft being dismantled in the Arizona desert.
The video left many wondering why such young aircraft — originally valued at around $110 million — would be more valuable in pieces than in the air.
The main reason: Its Pratt & Whitney geared turbofan engines were effectively gold. That’s because of a 2023 manufacturing defect that triggered widespread inspections and grounded more than 600 A320neo-family aircraft worldwide.
Limited engine repair capacity and supply chain constraints have worsened the crisis, creating lengthy backlogs that have kept aircraft out of service for longer and left airlines scrambling for replacement engines and parts.
This triggered a collective shift in basic supply-and-demand dynamics, as working GTF engines quickly became scarce and highly valuable — and demand is now so strong that a pair, such as on an A320neo, can be worth more than the jet itself.
Data from aviation analytics firm Cirium shows airlines can lease a pair of engines for about $400,000 a month, or roughly $4.8 million a year. That is close to, or often even more than, the price of leasing an entire narrowbody airliner.
The rest of the jet can also be monetized, including avionics, landing gear, and other in-demand components. Effectively, a single A320neo can be cannibalized to keep multiple other aircraft flying.
A spokesperson for AerSale, the aftermarket supplier that stored the aircraft, told Business Insider that N950NK has been at its facility since December 2024, and that it was taken out of service because of the GTF engine issue, not Spirit’s demise.
They added that the limited repair capacity meant the jet sat for a long time awaiting engine repairs, and it was sold several times before the ultimate teardown. It’s unclear where the engines ended up.
Another formerly leased Spirit aircraft, N959NK, which is also about four years old, was also sold for parts. Both aircraft were bought by EirTrade Aviation, an Irish company specializing in aircraft teardown and parts redistribution.
The company said in a February press release announcing the sale that these are the youngest A320neos to be torn apart.
Bill Thompson, the VP of Origination & Trading for the Americas at EirTrade, said “this significant transaction” acquired four sets of in-demand spare parts and components.
EirTrade did not respond to a request for comment about the teardown. Phoenix’s airport authority referred Business Insider to AerSale.
While the original lessor could have opted to restore, sell, or re-lease the planes, that would have likely been more trouble than it’s worth. JetBlue, among the several airlines affected and still awaiting repairs, said in a recent SEC filing that the GTF fix takes about 300 days to complete.
Plus, both aircraft had been parked and collecting dust for months, and returning them to service would have required extensive inspections, repairs, logistics, and storage-related costs, in addition to labor and repositioning expenses. Effectively, harvesting these jets is more cost-effective than returning the entire plane to service.
Industry executives have pointed out the imbalance: Blake Scholl, CEO of Boom Supersonic, said in a Saturday X post that the GTF engine “is such a disaster that it led to almost brand new jets being scrapped.”
A spokesperson for RTX, Pratt & Whitney’s parent company, told Business Insider that getting aircraft back into service is a “top priority” and that it was increasing repair capacity. It added that in the first quarter, the A320neo engine groundings were down by more than 15% from the end of last year, and it expects that decline to continue.
It’s unclear how many more former Spirit aircraft will ultimately be parted out, though the airline’s collapse added dozens more GTF-powered jets to the market, providing temporary relief.
“Some are already probably in the pipeline to be leased again,” Steve Giordano, a ferry pilot whose company Nomadic Aviation Group helped fly Spirit’s planes to the desert, told NPR in May. “Some are going to have the engines removed, moved on to different airframes, and those aircraft are going to get leased. Some are going to get parted out. Some, nobody knows.”
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