Jet engine makers sell their engines at a loss and profit for thirty years
A new jet engine usually leaves the factory at a loss. Its maker earns the money back over roughly three decades of service, selling maintenance and spare parts, the same logic as cheap razors and pricey blades. That arrangement gives manufacturers a reason to favour old engines, which need more servicing, over delivering new ones quickly.
Few firms can play. Developing an engine takes around eight years and billions, followed by strict safety certification, and the last company to break into the global jet engine market was General Electric in the 1970s. By 2025 the leading engine makers had delivered five-year shareholder returns of 100 to 1,000 percent, while their main customers, Airbus and Boeing, saw small or negative returns and struggled with engine shortages as air travel rebounded after 2023.
Early piston designs took creative shapes. In a radial engine the air-cooled cylinders ring the crankshaft, making it tough enough to absorb damage but liable to overheat. The rotary engine solved that by bolting the crankshaft to the airframe and letting the cylinders and case spin with the propeller, so cooling air kept flowing even at low speed. The Seguin brothers' Gnome Omega, first flown in 1909, was the first practical rotary, and its reliability and power for its weight transformed aviation.
The Wankel, a different kind of rotary, is about half the weight and size of a four-stroke piston engine of equal power. With a steel rotor inside an aluminium housing, which expands more when hot, it will not seize if it overheats, a big safety plus in the air. The industry backed turbines instead, and Wankels ended up in Mazda sports cars and motor gliders.
Electric flight is catching up. In late 2007 a French light aircraft with an 18 kilowatt motor and lithium polymer batteries flew over 50 kilometres and became the first electric aeroplane certified as airworthy. On 18 May 2020 the Pipistrel E-811 became the first electric aircraft engine type-certified by European regulators, powering the Velis Electro. Pilots of four-engine jets such as the Boeing 747 number the engines from their left, so engine one sits outermost on the left wing.
Source: Aircraft engine
