Is the 7-year aircraft delivery backlog breaking airline business models?

[Aviador]

We have reached an extraordinary bottleneck in global fleet planning. The global commercial aircraft backlog has ballooned to over 18,000 aircraft which represents nearly 60% of the entire active global fleet.

For airline bosses, long-term fleet planning is up in the air. If a carrier places an order for a new narrowbody today, the waiting list stretches out up to seven years.

Because of delivery shortfalls from both Airbus and Boeing, airlines are being forced to radically alter their strategies:

• Keeping older planes flying: Carriers are having to sweat their existing, older aircraft for record hours just to maintain their schedules.
• Surging maintenance costs: The average global fleet age has officially crept past 15 years, driving up engineering and MRO (Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul) bills.
• Flatlining fuel efficiency: Older airframes mean airlines aren't seeing the fuel savings promised by next-generation jets, squeezing net profit margins down to a razor-thin 2%.

How long can carriers realistically sustain this "make do and mend" model before heavy maintenance bills completely eat their profits? Which airlines do you think are most exposed to these 7-year lead times, and who is navigating the capacity crunch best?

What are your thoughts?