For a comprehensive assessment of new aircraft designs and technologies the whole aircraft life cycle has to be considered. Therefore, not only economic but also environmental impacts must be taken into account due to increasing ecological awareness of politics, companies and society. This paper presents an interdisciplinary methodical approach towards describing and evaluating the costs as well as the ecological and socio-economic effects in the course of the whole life cycle of an aircraft. In this context an aircraft is described by the top-level aircraft requirements, and design and process specifications. The life cycle is split up into four phases: design and development, production, operations, and recycling and disposal. For each of these phases methods are developed that aim at determining its financial, ecological and social impact on the aircraft life cycle, and finally are integrated into one platform.