The Germanwings A320 that crashed into the French Alps on Tuesday, killing all 150 onboard, was 24 years old which puts the plane into the older age bracket for commercial flight. While it’s too early to know if age was a factor in the crash, the increasing number of older planes in the air is one of the issues the commercial air industry must grapple with.
Over the past 20 years, the average age of the worldwide commercial air fleet was 10 to 12 years old, according to the October 2014 analysis of the impact of aircraft age on safety conducted by MIT’s International Center for Air Transportation. But as air travel continues to expand and the number of airlines continues grows, more and more planes over the age of 20 are flying in the skies.
