In other words, it could be said that Boeing aircraft command a premium for quality! (Same for a car or a pair of shoes...)An interesting excercise would be to, for a given aircraft, subtract Boeing operating costs from the higher Airbus costs over the lifetime of both aircraft, then take the present value of those differences (i.e. adjust each future difference to account for the effect of interest rates), sum them up and compare them to the Boeing price premium: They should be the same amount!

I looked through the present value wiki page and it says nothing about AIrcraft, was wondering why you linked a method for pricing AAA securities to aircraft. After 20 years are you suggesting the Aircraft is still worth it's bookvalue at sale? I can assure you the present value of an aircraft 30 years from now is closer to zero no matter what you paid for it, or what happens to interest rates.

I looked through the present value wiki page and it says nothing about AIrcraft, was wondering why you linked a method for pricing AAA securities to aircraft. After 20 years are you suggesting the Aircraft is still worth it's bookvalue at sale? I can assure you the present value of an aircraft 30 years from now is closer to zero no matter what you paid for it, or what happens to interest rates.

Present Value is a methodology for comparing cashlows that occur at different dates and is used to determine the worth today of any sequence of cashlows over time, be it from AAA securities as you say to aircraft and to any situation in life involving predetermined fixed exchanges of money at occurring at fixed dates over time.The phrase "present value of an aircraft 30 years from now" is self-contradictory: The term "present" in "present value" means "today". If you are talking about value in the future, then the appropriate subject is future value.Regarding aircraft, the present value of each of all aircraft in operation is positive. The reason for this is that when the present value goes negative is when the aircraft is retired. The equation for every operator is: Is it worth paying for maintenance and inspections today vs. estimated revenue in the future (until the next insection/maintenance date)?The related question is: Given the capital tied-up in the present fleet, is it worth selling that fleet (low sales price received but avoid expensive operating costs and expensive maintenance in the future) to free-up that capital and use it to buy more modern aircraft (expensive purchase price but lower maintenance and lower operating in the future.) The equation gets more complicated when you factor in that aircraft are not purchased but leased: The only way to get your "North" to decide wich is the better deal for your stockholders is to calculate the present value of each cashflow and the net present value of each deal.The field of study covering this subject is ingeniously called Aircraft Finance.Cheers,- jahman.

On the basis of capital and operating costs the net present value of an aircraft is always negative. They both repesent an outflow of capital. Only when revenue - an inflow of ccapital - is inlcuded can the NPV become positive. Obviously there is no revenue in the case of military aicraft so their NPV is negative.

Considering the USAF operates their equipment for decades (They are still operating B-52's developed back in the 1950's), the 767 are the better choice.There are still quite a number of Air Forces operating 707 variants around the world including the USA. So it is possible these 767's being purchased now will still be operating beyond 2050.Airbus still hasn’t an aircraft that has operated for that long and in those types of numbers. A300 is their longest running aircraft and mostly used in Cargo ops today.