Aircraft lifespans are quite interesting things to analyse. If you view the total production run of the aircraft, and the average time which the aircraft are taken out of service, you will usually get a figure of between 20 and 30 years depending on a wide range of factors.
However increasingly so you will always find that the first aircraft to be taken out of service will be done so much earlier than the average, and the final aircraft to cease flying will be done so much later than the average.
At the moment we are seeing relatively new aircraft being taken out of service and scrapped. This is due to the low supply of original spare parts, making older aircraft more valuable as scrap than as a full flying aircraft. As an example the first A320 was scrapped last year, and 2 more are in the process of being scrapped now. Also in the last few days the first ever CRJ was also scrapped. Despite this, the average lifespan of these aircraft types will still be 10 or 15 years longer than the lifespan of these individual aircraft.
On the opposite end of the scale, there are still a limited number of classic aircraft, like Tristars flying about, well after their average life expectancy. This can usually be explained by the complex process of aircraft ownership. Basically however, after a certain point the cost of owning an aircraft decreases quite substantially, once all finance costs have been paid. For significantly older aircraft like Tristars, this means that they can change hands for virtually no cash. This in turn means that these aircraft can be acquired easily, and flown as much as possible until the cost of maintaining them becomes too great.
Therefore dont be surprised when comparitively new aircraft get broken up well before you expect, and also dont be surprised to see Tristars and DC10s flying for many more years.
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