Why are airlines not required by law to update their planes more often and use newer models? Many commercial planes being used today are older than most people on this website.

Question

Is there no safety issue there?

In: Other

Answer 1

The planes are constantly under maintenance and are retrofitted quite often. If the engines and the body are in good shape, all sorts of things can be changed at a much lower cost than replacing the plane. Airline travel wouldnt be affordable if they replaced the fleet every 5-10 years, but they change the avionics, engine parts, etc.

Many parts are mandated to be changed after a certain number of hours, so even the guts of the engines are replaced over time. Airline travel remains one of the absolute safest methods of transportation so it’s simply not necessary.