PW Canada continues next-gen turboprop development despite airplane demand uncertainty

 

PWC_NGRT

Pratt & Whitney Canada’s next generation turboprop. Source: PWC. Click on image to enlarge.

March 24, 2016, © Leeham Co.: Pratt & Whitney Canada (PWC) continues development of the next generation turboprop engine, even as low oil prices reduce the attractiveness of turboprop airplanes.

Few believe oil prices won’t creep back up over time, once again making prop-jets attractive once again. The ancillary question is what’s next for this type airplane? An entirely new, clean-sheet design? A 90-100 seat turboprop airplane? Or retrofitting this next-gen engine on today’s turboprop airliners?

Summary

  • PWC’s new engine could be fitted to a new airplane design or retrofitted to today’s Bombardier Q400 and ATR series airplanes.
  • The 20-year market is small.
  • The 20-year market for a 90-seat turboprop is smaller still.
  • Embraer is evaluating whether to reenter the turboprop market, 15 years after the last mass-produced Brasilia rolled off the assembly line.
  • GE is developing a turboprop engine and at least three countries have interest in this sector.

Read more

Nordic Aviation Capital completes second major acquistion

March 15, 2016: Nordic Aviation Capital yesterday announced it acquired regional aircraft lessor Jetscape Aviation Group. This is the second major acquisition since December. Then, NAC agreed to acquire 25 ATR turboprop aircraft from Air Lease Corp., which decided to focus entirely on jets, most of which are mainline aircraft. All but a handful of the ATRs were already leased, with the remaining still in production.

Nordic had nearly 250 aircraft from the ATR and Bombardier Dash and Q families, plus a small number of Bombardier CRJs, Airbus A320s and Boeing 737s. The Jetscape acquisition brings Embraer EJets to the Nordic portfolio.

“The deal will see Nordic Aviation Capital expand into the regional jet arena, bringing 28 owned Embraer E-Jets, commitments for 11 E-Jets and a further 18 of the type under management into its sizeable regional aircraft portfolio,” the company said in a press release.

Read more

Bombardier earnings preview

Subscription required

Introduction

Feb. 16, 2016, ©  Leeham Co.: Bombardier’s fourth quarter and full year 2015 financial results will be reportedBBD CS 100 Wednesday, and we don’t expect the situation to be pretty.

Yes, officials will highlight the recent closing of the sale of 30% of the Transportation (Rail) subsidiary.

Yes, the C Series is now on a world tour and appearing at the Singapore Air Show this week.

Yes, the CS100 will enter service in the second quarter.

Yes, the CS300 should be certified, delivered and enter service before the end of this year.

But missing will be any concrete information about new orders.

Summary

  • Still no C Series orders since September 2014.
  • Bombardier has its hand out for more government aid.
  • ATR is making a new push in China and North America, the latter a stronghold for the Q400.

Read more

Pontifications: Bad week for aerospace stocks

Feb. 1, 2016, © Leeham Co. Ouch.

Hamilton KING5_2

By Scott Hamilton

Boeing stock tanked about 10% last Wednesday when the company surprised analysts with unexpected news and below expectations 2016 guidance.

Bombardier became a penny stock.

What the heck happened?

Read more

The turbo-prop conundrum: small market, high costs

ATR Turbo-prop. Photo via Google images.

Subscription Required

Introduction

ATR and Bombardier are incumbents. China has a home-market offering.

Indonesia and India want to create a product.

It’s the 60-seat and up turbo-prop market.

It’s too many companies chasing too-small a market.

Summary

  • The 20-year demand for 60-99 seat turbo-props is small.
  • Developing a new, clean-sheet design is costly.
  • There is a solid demand for an inexpensive 19-34 seat turbo-prop—but nobody is interested.

Read more

Evaluating airliner performance, part 1.

By Bjorn Fehrm

Subscription required.

Introduction

Sep. 21 2015, ©. Leeham Co: Comparing and evaluating operational and economic performance of competing airliners is a complex task that requires analysis of thousands of parameters.

It’s not unknown for smaller airlines to have limited capability to undertake these difficult analyses. Accordingly, they often rely on the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) for their analysis on behalf of the potential customer.

Unfortunately, the OEM’s have little incentive to provide an unbiased view of either their products nor those of their competitors.

Thorough evaluations require quite some preparations. If these preparations are not carried out correctly, the result can be biased to the extent that the evaluation method dictates which’s the best aircraft and not the most suitability aircraft for the task. We will in a series of articles cover how aircraft evaluations are done and how evaluation pitfalls can be avoided.

Summary:

  • Aircraft evaluations are made for all direct operating costs that can be linked directly to the operation of the airliner.
  • The costs can be divided in Cash Operating Costs (COC), which covers the operation of the aircraft and capital costs. Combined these costs constitute the Direct Operating Costs, DOC.
  • The OEMs produce data for all COC cost items, but they do that in their own way. To make the costs comparable one need to know and understand their assumptions and neutralize these through independent modeling of the costs.
  • We describe what these assumptions are and how to neutralize them.

 

Read more

ATR selling their 1,500 ATR turboprop to Japan Airlines.

By Bjorn Fehrm

Introduction

June 15. 2015, C. Leeham Co: ATR said its turboprop product has broken a barrier that was thought impossible for regional turboprops at its Paris Air Show press briefing today. It was a company telling about being in a strong market and enjoying a market leading position. ATR sold its 1500th aircraft to Japan Airlines Commuter (JAC),  the regional daughter of Japan Airlines. JAC signed for eight ATR 42 to replace the Saab 340 fleet. JAC also holds options for a further 15 aircraft. The order was the first for ATR aircraft to Japan.

ATR, which is owned 50:50 by Airbus and Finmeccanica of Italy with headquarters in Toulouse, is dominating the under 90 seat worldwide turboprop market. ATR said that it will unveil business for 46 aircraft during the air show with 35 options as it continues to dominate the world market for turboprops which seats up to 90 passengers. ATR claims it has controlled 77% of the market since 2010 to date and that its customer base during that time was 51 customers versus nearest competitor’s 24.

Read more

Paris Air Show: Qatar and others

Subscription required.

Introduction

June 1, 2015, c. Leeham Co. It could be called the Qatar Airways Air Show.

Qatar Airways plans to have five airliners on display at the Paris Air Show in two weeks: the Airbus A319, A320, A350, A380 and the Boeing 787. The carrier hasn’t announced whether it will provide an aerial display as it has at previous air shows, but Qatar may well have more airliners there than Airbus or Boeing.

As for manufacturers other than Airbus and Boeing, we don’t expect anything of consequence from these.

Summary

  • Irkut, COMAC, Mitsubishi, Sukoi and ATR are other major aircraft producers that will be at the Paris Air Show.
  • Engine makers CFM International, GE Aviation, Rolls-Royce, Pratt & Whitney and Engine Alliance will also be there.
  • An update on Airbus expectations.

Read more

Next Gen turboprop R&D continues at Pratt & Whitney

Subscription Required

Introduction

Maria Della Posta, SVP Sales and Marketing, Pratt & Whitney Canada

April 5, 2015, c. Leeham Co. Pratt & Whitney Canada (PWC) continues to develop the next generation turbo prop engine despite little interest from Bombardier for a replacement for its slow-selling Q400 or from Airbus, 50% owner of ATR, dominant producer of this type of aircraft.

Maria Della Posta, SVP of sales and marketing, said PWC is confident demand will prevail over the current lack of interest to see a new airplane program launched as early as 2016 or 2017–though she hedges that this could slip a year or two.

Summary

  • In the meantime, PWC continues to undertake Performance Improvement Packages (PIPs) for its ubiquitous PW100 series that is now in its 38th iteration.
  • Emerging market ambitions could create new opportunities for PWC to put its next engine on new entrant turbo prop producers.
  • Airlines seek a new, larger turbo prop than the Q400 and ATR 72.

Read more

Bombardier changing the message on the Q400 to emphasize flexbility

Ross Mitchell Fleigerfaust 2

Ross Mitchell, VP Business Acquisition, Commercial Aircraft, Bombardier. Source: Fleigerfaust.

March 19, 2015: C. Leeham Co. Bombardier’s current challenges don’t end with the CSeries. The company has seen its once-dominate positions in the regional jet and turbo prop markets decline precipitously.

The CRJ struggles in its sales against the Embraer E-Jet. The Q400’s market share of the turbo prop sector has declined to a mere 10% of the backlog vs ATR.

Still, Ross Mitchell, vice president of Business Acquisition and Commercial Aircraft for Bombardier, gave a spirited defense and upbeat outlook of both products during last week’s ISTAT conference in Phoenix. In a one-on-one interview the next day, we posed a series of questions about the CRJ and the Q400. Today’s report is about the Q400. Tomorrow’s will be about the CRJ.

Read more