The answer is 2040. The global manufacturing backlog sits at 17,000 planes. Roughly 60 percent of the active global fleet. Capital is cheap and demand is high, but physical manufacturing cannot be wished into existence with a software update. Waiting 14 years for inventory destroys balance sheets. Airlines are trapped in a decade long waiting room. They cannot simply halt operations. They keep flying the aging, fuel hungry planes they already own.

Insight 3 of 9 from the full story.

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