Full-Life Engine Prices Nearly Doubled To $13 Million But Are Keeping Old Freighters In The Air

Published Nov 5, 2026, 11:01 AM EST Luke Diaz is a freelance military writer with experience with active duty experience in the US Navy as well as defense and industrial engineering. He is a former Naval Flight Officer who performed tactical air control on the carrier-based E-2 Hawkeye. Air cargo has been experiencing rising demand since the e-commerce explosion and traffic during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, that sustained surge in air express traffic has been hindered by a bottleneck in the supply chain for both new widebody freighters and power plants for the current global fleet. While both Airbus and Boeing are still delivering a number of airframes every year, engine makers like Pratt & Whitney, General Electric, Rolls-Royce, and CFM International are also struggling with output. The imbalance in supply and demand has also raised the prices of passenger-to-freighter converted planes and rebuilt turbofan engines. Even at the low end of the market, the prolific CFM56 engine series, commonly found on Boeing 737 Next Generation narrowbody jets, has doubled in price in recent years to $13 million on average. Despite these jaw-dropping asset costs and ballooning maintenance expenses, cargo operators are eagerly paying the premium to keep older freighters in the air rather than retiring them. Cargo Facts Consulting counted only 52 freighters entering service in the first eight months of 2026. This partially explains why FedEx is bringing MD-11 trijets back from a grounding instead of letting them go after the tragically fatal UPS Express crash last year. That is also why lessors are racing to convert retired passenger-configured 777-300ERs to freighters. The dramatic surge in engine and aircraft valuations stems from severe aerospace supply-chain constraints and unprecedented maintenance backlogs across the world. A Thin Year For Deliveries Credit: MC MEDIASTUDIO | Shutterstock The global air freight industry is experiencing a severe capacity squeeze because it is caught in a supply-side bottleneck. The clearest example of this year's cargo drought is the complete production freeze on Boeing's core freighter lines. A major parts dispute over trailing-edge rib kits forced Boeing to completely halt manufacturing of its 777F and 767F models. This single supply-chain breakdown instantly stopped deliveries for major global carriers like FedEx and UPS. The critically low number of new cargo aircraft deliveries and the cascading delays of the Airbus A350F and Boeing 777-8F have become the primary choke points strangling global logistics. Meanwhile, because major aircraft manufacturers are facing severe delays delivering next-generation, fuel-efficient passenger jets, passenger airlines have been forced to change their retirement strategies as well. Instead of phasing out midlife narrowbodies, like the Boeing 737NG generation, and sending them to conversion houses, passenger airlines are extending their leases and keeping them in service. This situation has directly limited the available pool of conversion airframes that can be rebuilt to serve cargo operators. As passenger airlines hoard these aircraft, they also consume the available engine maintenance capacity and spare parts pool. Engines Become The Choke Point Credit: InsectWorld | Shutterstock A global shortage of both new and used engine components, particularly life-limited parts, has forced maintenance, repair, and overhaul shops into stiff competition. Rather than buying parts individually, companies are buying up intact, older engines for millions of dollars solely to tear them apart for their raw components. At the same time, factory-new freighters are being delayed or left sitting on tarmacs without engines due to flaws or component scarcity needed to make next-generation turbofans. The supply of these mature engines is so thin, asset prices have become disconnected from condition. A full-life CFM56 engine that used to cost $6 million now commands $13 million. Even a completely broken, unserviceable unit could fetch several million just so a company can strip it down for parts. Cargo operators cannot make the economic math of a conversion work when the engines alone cost more than the entire conversion process. Below is a breakdown of current engine pricing per data from FlightGlobal and Cargo Facts valuations: Engine Family Primary Freighter Platforms Pre-2023 Price Average Full-Life Value In 2026 Teardown Value In 2026 Price Increase CFM International CFM56-7B Boeing 737-800BCF / 737NG $6.0M $13.0M $7.0M 116% GE Aerospace GE90-115B Boeing 777F / 777-300ER P2F $14.0M $24.0M $11.5M 71% GE Aerospace CF6-80C2B6F Boeing 767-300F / 747-400F $3.5M $8.5M $4.0M 142% International Aero Engines V2500-A5 Airbus A321P2F / A320ceo $5.5M $12.0M $6.5M 118% Pratt & Whitney PW4000-94 MD-11F / Boeing 747-400F $2.0M $5.0M $2.5M 150% Supply chain constraints and aerospace labor shortages have prolonged engine overhaul times significantly. When a narrowbody engine enters a maintenance facility for a performance restoration, it stays trapped in the shop for months longer than historically expected. Because engines are stuck in maintenance limbo, passenger and cargo operators are forced to scramble for a finite pool of available lease engines to keep their existing fleets operational. This surge in backup leasing demand has triggered an explosive run-up in both lease rates and the purchase prices of full-life engines. For fragile cargo operators already struggling under a massive jet fuel bill spiked by geopolitical conflicts, these $13 million engine valuations present a compounding financial threat. While air freight yields remain temporarily supported by strong e-commerce traffic, the massive capital required just to keep a narrowbody engine spinning is rapidly creating an environment where only the most financially robust carriers can survive. Conversion Feedstock Gets Scarcer Credit: Austin Deppe | Shutterstock Every jet engine has critical rotating components like discs, spools, and shafts designated as Life-Limited Parts. These parts have a hard legal limit on how many flight cycles they can perform before they must be thrown away to prevent catastrophic failure. They cannot be repaired. For freighters currently flying, such as older Boeing 747-400Fs, 767Fs, and MD-11Fs powered by mature CF6-80, PW4000, or RB211 engines, the choke point is a total exhaustion of the secondary parts market. For legacy engines, manufacturers have significantly scaled back or completely ceased the production of new forge castings for these older LLPs. With no new LLPs being forged, cargo operators are forced into an aggressive scrap-market spiral. Airlines are buying up retired, intact aircraft strictly to dismantle the engines and harvest any remaining flight cycles left on their internal discs and blades. Once the global pool of these used, valid LLPs is completely exhausted, an active freighter is permanently grounded. Below are recent statistics from both Airbus and Boeing data releases: Manufacturer Airframe Category 2026 Deliveries Global Fleet 20-Year Fleet Forecast Boeing 777F / 767F Factory New 20 785 875 Boeing 767-300BCF / 737-800BCF P2F Conversion 21 1,610 2,055 Airbus A330-200F / A350F Factory New 430 670 Airbus A330-300P2F / A321P2F P2F Conversion 11 1,930 2,000 Meanwhile, passenger airlines are hoarding engines, continuing to run them, and taking up all available shop slots. The passenger-to-freighter conversion market relies heavily on mature, reliable engine families like the CFM56-7B powering the 737NG, and the GE90 powering the 777. Because passenger airlines cannot get their new next-gen planes due to the delays mentioned above, they are keeping their mid-life narrowbodies and widebodies flying. Old Freighters Reprice Upward Credit: A. Viduetsky | Shutterstock The lack of replacement aircraft and a drying up of passenger feedstock have sent the asset values of old, legacy freighters skyrocketing. Cargo operators are being forced to bid up the prices of planes that, under normal market cycles, would already be headed to the desert or the scrap heap. The 747-400F should be rapidly retiring due to its high fuel consumption and heavy maintenance overhead. Instead, its nose-loading capability and unmatched payload capacity mean operators are paying heavy premiums to put these airframes through intensive checks just to keep them flying. Base values, which are IBA's baseline estimate of what an aircraft is worth, rose by an average of 114% for factory-built and converted 747-400Fs, according to Air Cargo News. Simultaneously, the 777-200LR conversion rose by an average of 17% and the 777-300ERSF by an average of 19%. Current-generation factory 777Fs and converted 777-200LRs are holding onto their value tightly because they are the only reliable twin-engine long-haul main-deck option available today. A larger 777-300ER variant is acutely affected by the fact that passenger airlines are refusing to give up airframes to be converted. Converted 737-800 and A321-200 freighters gained about 17% on average in parallel with widebody price increases. This entire old-freighter pricing bubble is anchored to severe manufacturing delays across four major long-haul widebody programs. Those are the Airbus A350 passenger and freighter line as well as the corresponding variant of the Boeing 777X series. Because neither Airbus nor Boeing can deliver their next-generation heavy-lift passenger or cargo planes on time, the entire aviation ecosystem is stuck in place. The Long Overdue Next-Gen Freighter Families Credit: Airbus The dedicated A350F program has drifted out to late 2027, while production constraints on the baseline A350-1000 passenger models are forcing airlines to keep their older widebodies flying. Across the Atlantic, it's even worse for Boeing as certification issues have pushed the entry into service of the passenger 777-9 deep into the late 2020s, which has subsequently knocked the 777-8F freighter variant back to 2028 or 2029. Airbus currently holds over 100 firm orders for the variant, backed by anchors like Singapore Airlines, Cathay Cargo, Etihad Airways, and Atlas Air. Boeing sits at over 80 firm orders for the type, anchored heavily by launch customer Qatar Airways Cargo, Cargolux, MSC Air Cargo, and China Airlines. Airbus holds the first-mover advantage, though it is running roughly two years behind its original launch schedule due to supply-chain constraints. The first prototype airframe officially completed its maiden test flight on September 29, executing a 4-hour, 10-minute trial from Toulouse, France. Boeing is building the heavier competitor but is heavily bogged down in engineering and paperwork struggles years after missing its original delivery timeline.