Leeham News and Analysis

There's more to real news than a news release.

There's more to real news than a news release.

Odds and Ends: KC-787 unlikely; Qatar on A380, A350 and CSeries; more Airbus-Boeing bickering

KC-787?: Defense News has this article quoting Jim Albaugh that the prospect of a KC-787 is unlikely.

Qatar on Airbus, Bombardier: Qatar’s Akbar Al-Baker says he won’t take the Airbus A380 without a permanent fix for the wing L-brace cracks. In the same story, Al-Baker comments on the redesign of the A350. Al-Baker also said talks for the Bombardier CSeries are on hold for 6-12 months. Details in this story.

More Airbus-Boeing bickering: It’s tiresome enough that Airbus and Boeing publicly bicker over the A320 v 737, neo v MAX and 747 v A380. Now they are in a public pissing match over the 737 BBJ and the Airbus ACJ business jets. Both sides need to act like the world-class companies they are.

Here’s to flying British Airways: No comment necessary.

 21 Comments

 Posted on May 14, 2012 by

 Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, CSeries

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PW to dual-source neo engine manufacture

Pratt & Whitney will dual source manufacture of the A320neo GTF engine so there is no single point of failure, an official said at the PW Media Day in Hartford.

Tom Mayes, general manager of the company’s Middletown (CT) facility, also said that a decision hasn’t been made for a production location of the GTF version for the Mitsubishi MRJ. PW is assembling the Bombardier CSeries version at Montreal Mirabel Airport.

PW CEO David Hess said the GTF, offered on the A320neo, the CSeries, MRJ and the Irkut MC-21, will drive PW’s revenues from $12.7bn last year to twice that by 2020. Over the life of the program, Hess estimates the GTF will produce $325bn in revenues.

There currently is a backlog of more than 2,600 GTFs.

Ground and flight testing is validating promises about GTF performance, Hess told the international media: 16% better fuel consumption vs today’s engines, lower noise and on-target maintenance forecasts.

 4 Comments

 Posted on May 2, 2012 by

 Airbus, Bombardier, CSeries, Pratt & Whitney

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Odds and Ends: Taking airplanes in on trade; Q400 scores

Taking airplanes in on trade: Much is being made of Boeing taking five Airbus A340-600s in on trade to secure an order for 20 777-300ERs from China Eastern. While trade-ins are not common, neither are they unknown. Boeing has done this before, including what was then a particularly controversial deal: taking brand-new A340s off the hands of Singapore Airlines even before they had been delivered as part of a 777 deal. Those A340-300s went straight to Boeing from Airbus, much to the consternation of John Leahy at the time.

The OEMs don’t like to take airplanes in on trade; after all, they are in the business of selling new airplanes, not used ones, but Airbus, Boeing and Bombardier all have active used airplane units to remarket aircraft they have in their own portfolios–usually originating from their customer financing.

Bombardier wins Q400 deal: WestJet of Canada will order 20 Q400s and option 25 more in what was a hotly contested deal between ATR and Bombardier. Although many believe this was a slam-dunk for Bombardier, the competition was intense; WestJet sent the parties back to re-price the deal late in the game.

This order gives BBD 28 firm and 45 options for the Q400 so far this year, compared with a mere seven in 2011.

The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming! Boeing imports Russian engineers to work in the Seattle area, much to the consternation of SPEAA, Boeing’s engineer’s union. Now the practice has caught the attention of a US Senator.

Outsourcing is a sore point for Boeing’s unions. While Boeing says it does so to reduce costs and to offset work in exchange for sales, there is a larger issue: the US simply doesn’t produce enough engineers to meet demand, and 50% of Boeing’s engineers reach retirement age in the next five years or so. We don’t like Boeing using Russian or Chinese help to produce airplanes–after all, these two countries are developing competitors to Boeing aircraft and it strikes us as pretty silly to help your competitor (why not hire French or German engineers, for Pete’s sake?). But the USA’s failure to place a high priority on developing engineers is a national disgrace and Boeing has to find the help where it can get it.

 23 Comments

 Posted on May 1, 2012 by

 Airbus, ATR, Boeing, Bombardier

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ISTAT Part 3: Lessors Panel: GECAS, ILFC, AWAS, Air Lease Corp

The final panel at the ISTAT meeting is the much-anticipated lessors’ panel consisting of:

Jeff Knittle, president of CIT Aerospace, moderator;

Henri Courpron, Chairman of ILFC;

Ray Sisson, CEO of AWAS;

Norman Liu, CEO of GECAS; and

Steve Udvar-Hazy, CEO of Air Lease Corp.

Paraphrasing:

HC: All hell broke loose in Europe and upended aviation. Looking at consolidation in Europe. America now had a lot of stability and discipline, and we’ll see that happen in Europe. More fuel efficient aircraft will be required in Europe. I see a lot of opportunity and challenges to come in Europe.
NL: Asia has been by far our most active market, with 70% of our airplanes going there. You have to look at different parts of Asia–you can’t generalize. LCCs in Japan. Always something going on in China. SE Asia, good organic growth. Philippines and Indonesia very interesting. South Asia has had travails.
SUH: North America is going through an interesting time. Canada is a duopoly situation with new Asian and Middle Eastern carriers entering the market. The US is very mature having gone through a lot of trial and tribulation, more disciplined [than before]. After 9/11 there was a slow-down in US carriers taking new airplanes. We have a bow wave of a requirement for new fleeting.
RS: Latin America is under-appreciated. We see rapid growth there. By 2015 may be 17%, 20% of our fleet. There is a remarkable amount of demand and opportunities for lessors.

 15 Comments

 Posted on March 20, 2012 by

 Airbus, ATR, Boeing, Bombardier, CFM, CSeries, Embraer, Pratt & Whitney

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ISTAT Part 2: BBD, EMB, Sukhoi, ATR

Chet Fuller, SVP Commercial, Bombardier

Luiz Chiessi, Director of Marketing Strategy of Embraer

Mark Neeley, VP-Marketing, ATR

John Buckley, VP Business Development, Sukhoi Superjet International

Fuller

  • CSeries weight validated and will be on spec at EIS.
  • Aluminum Lithium is better on fatigue than normal aluminum, much better on corrosion. Combine with composites, D check goes to 15 years. C check improved by 15%.
  • 787 first airplane with All-digital architecture, CSeries is second.
  • Last all-new narrowbody was A320 family.
  • Only aircraft with a 12:1 by-pass ratio; A320neo is 10:1, not sure what ratio Boeing will wind up with on MAX.
  • CSeries has better trip costs than E190, with seat costs of A3320neo. There is no magic here, there is just physics.
  • BBD has on order: 66 CS100, 72 CS300; 124 options, 10 purchase rights, 45 LOIs.

Chiessi

  • Mid-long-haul flights for 70-90 seats increasing in US and elsewhere.
  • 48% of EJet deployment is right-sizing by airlines. 26% for new market development.
  • Will maintain leadership in 70-120 seat segment, not enter into arena of Airbus and Boeing.

Buckley

  • SuperJet International responsible for world product support of Sukhoi for SSJ100.
  • Delivered seven aircraft, another in two weeks.
  • Expect to deliver 23 this year, 42 next year, 60 in 2014, 75-80 total current capacity but can be increased.
  • SSJ100 is only regional aircraft with 2×3, 5 in wider than MD80.
  • 10% less fuel consumption than direct competitor.

Neeley

  • ATR top turbo prop pick in Airfinance Journal investors poll.
  • We’re still making a 50-seat product. We have a family of airplanes.
  • Says ATR 72 has same fuel burn per passengers as A320.
  • One third of all passengers fly under 300 miles.

 26 Comments

 Posted on March 19, 2012 by

 ATR, Bombardier, Embraer

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Republic’s Bryan Bedford emulates U-Turn Al

The CEO of Republic Airways Holdings seems to be vying to be America’s version of U-Turn Al, Akbar Al-Baker, the CEO of Qatar Airways.

Bedford appears to be engaged in a campaign to raise questions about the Bombardier CSeries, for which he has orders and options for 80 CS300s, much the same way U-Turn Al alternatively praises then complains about the Airbus A350, Boeing 747-8F (ordered by Cargolux, in which Qatar owns a third) and the Boeing 787. U-Turn Al has also alternative praised, condemned then praised the Airbus A320neo, Bombardier CSeries and the Pratt & Whitney GTF.

Keeping up with U-Turn Al’s about-faces has been a dizzying prospect.

Bedford praised the CSeries when ordering it but has become increasingly skeptical of the program once he ordered the A319neo (with CFM LEAP engines) in what was a financial bailout of his ailing company being dragged down by Frontier Airlines. The Airbus order raised questions whether Bedford would cancel the CSeries since the A319neo competes with the CS300. Bedford initially said the order would stand. More recently, he appears to be doing everything to cast a shadow over the program.

Read more

 10 Comments

 Posted on March 15, 2012 by

 Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, CFM, CSeries, Embraer, Pratt & Whitney

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Odds and Ends: More on the Ex-Im funding renewal; Boeing studies 757 replacement

Ex-Im: Republicans continue efforts to shut down the Export-Import Bank, a move that would hurt Boeing Commercial Airplanes sales most but which also would hurt other industries as well. Delta Air Lines is the driving force behind the effort to cut off Ex-Im funding. As we’ve previously indicated, rules agreed to last year by Europe and the US changed the pricing model of the Ex-Im guaranteed loans to be market rates, solving a major objection of Delta.

Ending Ex-Im Bank funding would be a dumb idea. It would hurt American business and furthermore, fees generated a net $2bn for the US Treasury in the last five years.

757 Replacement: Boeing is already studying a replacement for the 757 with a loosely targeted EIS date of 2025-2026. This is called the New Airplane Study.

Qatar Airways: U-Turn Al-Baker has U-Turned his way out of the Bombardier CSeries. Although he continues to profess to be interested in the airplane, the first 2 1/2 years of production has now been sold out. Bombardier has moved on to customers it can rely on.

BCI Leasing: Principals of an obscure lessor were found guilty of fraud. This story explains. Here is the press release from the US Attorney’s Office.

WestJet: ATR and Bombardier are waiting for WestJet to make its decision between the ATR-72 and Q400 for the airline’s entry into turbo-prop markets. The Q400 is thought to have the advantage for the longer-range operational requirements. The order could be for up to 40 aircraft. If Bombardier wins, this would follow a recent order for up to 20 Q400s from Eurolot. After a dismal year last year in which BBD sold only seven Q400s (against a net of 119 ATR turbo-props), BBD appears headed for a very good year.

 27 Comments

 Posted on March 15, 2012 by

 ATR, Boeing, Bombardier

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Another example of a toothless WTO

As long-time readers of this column know, we have utter disdain for the World Trade Organization and its review of international competitive practices, such as the cases of Airbus and Boeing subsidies.

Here is another example of why we have disdain. As noted in this example, the WTO found China to be in violation of WTO rules on raw materials export rules but China did not remove the restrictions.

We’ve previously noted that the WTO found Brazil and Canada to be in violation of export support for Embraer and Bombardier airplanes–and nothing happened.

We’ve previously noted that the WTO has no power to enforce its own decisions and that the trade rules allow the winning country to impose tariffs on industries not involved in the original dispute. Thus, with respect to the Airbus and Boeing cases, the US could impose tariffs on French wine and the European Union could impose tariffs on Washington State wine or apples–or any other industries.

We find this completely ridiculous.

While the US has asked the WTO authority to impose tariffs with respect to the Airbus case, we would be shocked if it followed through (assuming, of course, the WTO authorized action) and tax Airbus imports into the US. The EU would retaliate by placing tariffs on Boeing. Nobody would win.

 5 Comments

 Posted on March 13, 2012 by

 Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, Embraer

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Lessor worries about Airbus, Boeing production rates

Here is an expanded version of a story we did last week for Flight Global Pro.

The refrain that Airbus and Boeing are over-producing the core-A320 and 737 programmes resurfaced with lessor AerCap in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

Aengus Kelly, CEO, chastised the Big Two OEMs for production plans announced so far. Airbus will go to a rate of 42 per month by the end of this year and is considering 44. Boeing plans to hit rate 42 by 2014. Both companies are considering rates as high as 60 per month.

Airbus produces airplanes only 11 months of the year while Boeing is on a 12 month production schedule.

In its 2011 20-year forecast, Boeing predicts there is a need for 23,370 single aisle aircraft in the 90-210 seat category. Airbus predicts 19,165 in the 100-210 seat market.

Based on the announced production rates, and assuming no changes through the 2030 forecast period in production—or for adjustments in the forecasts—Airbus and Boeing will produce 18,551 single-aisle airplanes.

If both OEMs go to rate 60 by 2016, their combined production exceeds their own single-aisle forecasts.

Read more

 12 Comments

 Posted on February 27, 2012 by

 Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, Comac, Embraer

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More Odds and Ends: Aircraft list prices, airline break-even

Aircraft List Prices: It took some doing, but we’ve collected the list prices of all the major commercial airplanes. The comparisons are interesting. We’ve tabulated these into seat categories.

List prices, of course, have no relationship to what customers actually pay. Discounts of 25%-30% are common and really good customers–like Southwest Airlines for Boeing–have been known to get discounts of up to 60%.

There are several notables in this list:

  • Compare the pricing of the C919 and the MS-21 to the Airbus and Boeing products;
  • Compare the Q400NG to the ATR-72-600;
  • Compare Airbus to Boeing; and
  • Compare CSeries to 737-600/700 and there isn’t that much difference; the gap is wider compared with Airbus.

Is there any particular point to this? Not really–it’s just one of those facts that intrigue us and a host of aviation geeks.

Read more

 34 Comments

 Posted on February 14, 2012 by

 Airbus, Airlines, ATR, Boeing, Bombardier, Comac, Embraer

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