SPECIAL REPORT / Aircraft makers are increasingly turning to retired airplanes as a source of metals and other materials that can be recycled, possibly to fly again in new generations of aircraft.

With 12,000 passenger planes due to be retired over the next 20 years, rising prices for metals and other components are giving manufacturers an incentive to recapture materials from old hulks, thousands of which are already parked in deserts, left to decay near landing strips or cannibalised for parts.