Does an A330-900F Make Sense Beside the A350F? Part 1
By Bjorn Fehrm • Aerospace Analyst
October 15, 2026
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The air freight market is split about 50-50 between freight that travels in the belly of passenger aircraft as add-on revenue and freight loaded onto dedicated freighters. The dedicated freighter market has been dominated by Boeing’s freighters for the last 50 years, where the 777F is the present intercontinental freighter feeding mega hubs and the 767-300F is the distribution freighter from those hubs—Louisville and Memphis in the U.S., Frankfurt in Europe, and Hong Kong in Asia-Pacific.
The combination of the 777F and 767-300F is now in trouble, as both aircraft fall under the ICAO ban on new production after 2027 because their engines have emissions that are too high. This ban is an ICAO recommendation to local regulators, and they can choose whether to enact it. The FAA has banned new 767-300ER deliveries from 2028 but will allow a total of 35 777Fs to be produced until 2030, when Boeing will presumably have the 777-8F ready to take over the intercontinental freighter role.
The dedicated freighter that will replace the 767-300ER is undecided. The market will use freighter-converted passenger aircraft, so-called P2F (passenger to freighter), because the ICAO ban does not apply to older feedstock entering a conversion chain.
Figure 1: The A330-200F introduced in 2010 and sold in 38 units until 2017. Photo credit: Airbus
Airbus has entered the freighter race with its A350F, a freighter in the 777F and 777-8F class, with engines that keep this aircraft in production past the 2027 ban. Airbus also introduced a smaller freighter in 2010, the A330-200F, but it only sold 38 units and is no longer in production. Because its engines would also fall under the 2027 ICAO emission rules, Airbus can’t reintroduce it to complement the A350F.
But Airbus could transfer the A330-200F freighter adaptations to a more modern A330 variant, the A330neo or A330-900. Its engines, the Rolls-Royce Trent 7000, would make it eligible for new aircraft deliveries past 2027. It would offer a complementary distribution freighter alongside the intercontinental A350F, rivaling Boeing’s 777-8F and 767-300F, and later the 767-300P2F.
This week, we examine a possible A330-900F and how it would compare with the factory Boeing 767-300F and with P2F conversion from both Airbus and Boeing. We use the Leeham Aircraft Performance and Cost Model (APCM) to design the freighters and then run them on typical routes to understand their operational economics.
C929 Supply Chain Builds Out as Comac’s Detailed Design Continues
By Jennifer Meszaros • Contributing Writer
October 13, 2026
Comac’s C929 widebody program is gaining momentum on the manufacturing front with suppliers taking on major structural work and preparing to deliver components for development aircraft.
The baseline aircraft is designed for 290 seats with a range of 12,000 km (6,480 nm), according to the state-owned manufacturer, with layouts accommodating between 282 and 440 seats. Speaking at the China Air Transport Association conference last month, Comac’s general manager Shen Bo described the C929 as being in “steady detailed design,” state broadcaster CCTV reported.
The remarks came shortly after Cotesa China, the Chinese subsidiary of Germany’s Cotesa GmbH and part of the ATCC Group, announced that its five-meter-class composite frame for large widebody airliners had completed process validation and could support C929 development and serial delivery. The company unveiled the technology on September 1, the opening day of the 29th China International Composites Industrial Technical Exhibition in Shanghai.
A model of the Comac C929 presented at the Singapore Airshow in 2024. Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons
According to Cotesa China, the frame met its design targets for dimensional accuracy and internal porosity during in-house testing. Its production process combines automated fiber placement (AFP) with thermal diaphragm forming; the team paired the forming step with tooling compensation to eliminate ply wrinkling, a common defect in large composite layups.
Engineers also ran full-scale AFP simulations and end-to-end finite element analysis to refine the tooling design and control cure-induced warpage and spring-back. The company added that the process is protected by a patent portfolio and represents independent control over automated manufacturing technology for aviation composites.
Comac, which has yet to identify a target date for the C929’s first flight, is targeting service-entry in the mid-2030s.
The Wind Check That Didn’t Happen Before the Miami 767 Overrun
By Vincent E. Bianco III • Contributing Writer
October 12, 2026
The basic facts have been established for weeks: On September 6, a Boeing 767 Freighter operated by 21 Air on behalf of Amazon landed long and fast after an approach to Runway 30 at Miami International Airport. It ran off the end at 113 knots and hit a van on the airport perimeter road. Five people in the van died.
The preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) outlines the crew’s role in the accident. It also shows that the tower cleared the airplane to land without giving the crew the wind reading, which FAA rules for controllers require whenever a tailwind is present.
The record starts with the crew.
The 21 Air-operated Boeing 767 involved in a fatal runway overrun in Miami in September 2026. Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons
The captain, who had earned his 767 type rating in May, was flying the inbound leg from Puerto Rico and had about 150 hours in the 767. He and the first officer had flown together for the first time that morning, on the leg to San Juan.
According to the airplane’s position broadcasts (ADS-B) and its flight data recorder, the 767 was about 105 feet above ground when it crossed the runway threshold at 177 knots, touching down about 3,750 feet down the runway at 160 knots. From flaps 20 on, the first officer repeatedly warned the captain that they were too fast. The cockpit voice recorder caught no consistent reply from the captain. Automated callouts warned “sink rate” twice and “too low terrain” five times. The captain called for flaps 30 at about 40 feet; investigators found the lever at 25.
On the runway, the speed brakes stayed down and the thrust reversers never deployed. With about 930 feet of runway left, the brakes came off and throttles went to go-around power—the setting for aborting a landing. Four seconds later the throttles came back to idle and the brakes went back on, with 415 feet left.
That is what happened in the cockpit. What follows is about the tower.
Starting Small: First Hydrogen-Powered Commercial Aircraft Could Be Size-Limited
By Jay Menon • Contributing Writer
October 12, 2026
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The first hydrogen-powered commercial aircraft may be considerably smaller than the aircraft the industry was talking about five years ago.
That does not mean hydrogen has lost its place in aviation’s search for alternatives to fossil fuels. The technology has advanced. Aircraft have flown on liquid hydrogen, fuel-cell power density has improved, and work is moving ahead on the equipment needed to refuel aircraft at airports. What has changed is the expected route to market.
H2FLY’s piloted HY4 demonstrator aircraft is equipped with a hydrogen-electric fuel cell propulsion system. Photo credit: H2FLY/X.com
Rather than jumping directly to larger airliners, hydrogen aviation is increasingly taking shape from the bottom up: prove the technology on small aircraft, move into the regional market, and then see how far aircraft size can be pushed without giving away too much payload, range, or operating efficiency.
“What proved too optimistic was the idea that aviation could make that leap in one step,” Ralph Muller, CEO of H2FLY told Leeham News and Analysis (LNA).
“The lessons learned since then have led to a strategic shift: we see hydrogen aviation developing step by step, starting with smaller aircraft, where the technology, certification and infrastructure are less complex, and scaling up from there.”
The question is no longer simply whether hydrogen can make an aircraft fly. It is whether the propulsion system can be light and reliable enough, whether an airline can refuel the aircraft without lengthening its turnaround, and whether those equations continue to work as aircraft get bigger.
Bjorn’s Corner: Aircraft Structures, Part 22: Thermoplastic Production of Large Parts
By Bjorn Fehrm • Aerospace Analyst
October 9, 2026
We started looking at thermoplastic composite production last week. The high melting point of 380°C to 400 °C for the PEEK variant and over 305 °C for the LMPEAK (Low Melt PAEK), and the high viscosity when melted (like honey), make dry fiber infusion a no-go method. Instead, heated closed molds bring heat to the matrix and force the composite into shape, often with hydraulic pressure on the mold surfaces.
Because thermoplastic composites can be joined by welding, they are attractive for producing composite aircraft fuselages, where the main challenge is joining thousands of parts. But the need for closed, heated molds, often combined with pressure, makes it difficult to produce the 30- to 50-foot-long outer skin panels with this method.
When Airbus did its MFFD (Multi Functional Fuselage Demonstrator) fuselage section with thermoplastic composites that were welded together (Figure 1), it had to post-consolidate the AFP in-situ-consolidated outer skins in an autoclave before welding on stringers, clips, and frames to the section.
Figure 1. The eight-meter single-aisle MFFD fuselage section. Photo credit: Airbus.
Folding Wingtips Present Challenge for Next Narrowbody Jets
By Howard Hardee • Editor
October 8, 2026
Folding wingtips could be considered something of a proven concept since they are a signature feature of the 777X. But before such technology can enable greater wingspans on the eventual successors to the Airbus A320neo and Boeing 737 Max families, several technical challenges still must be resolved.
Boeing has demonstrated the viability of folding wingtips on widebody jets. With its 235-foot wingspan, the 777-9 would not fit at airport gates and in taxiways without them. (FAA airport specifications show the 777-9’s folded wingspan measuring 213 feet.) That means airports do not have to alter infrastructure to accommodate the aircraft.
More importantly for operational economics, the 777-9’s folding wingtips—and the in-flight wingspan extension they allow—are critical for delivering airframe efficiency gains over the 777 Classic.
Boeing says the 777X’s high-span composite wing achieves more-efficient aerodynamics than those of the A350-1000, against which it will compete upon certification. Photo credit: Boeing
The 777-9 took its first test flight in January 2020, though it has yet to achieve FAA certification and enter passenger-carrying service. How the folding wingtip mechanisms hold up during airline operations has yet to be observed.
On the military side, several carrier aircraft have featured folding wings for deck storage. But there is no civil air transport equivalent to the 777X’s high-span composite wings with folding wingtips.
Sue Partridge, head of Airbus’ Wing of Tomorrow program, told Leeham News and Analysis (LNA) during this year’s Farnborough International Airshow that applying folding wing technology to future narrowbody jets will be more demanding.
“It’s a big challenge because if you think about a single-aisle product, it flies very, very frequently,” she said. “A 777 may takeoff and land once in a day. If you put this technology on a single-aisle aircraft, we need to know that it’s going to reliably fold and unfold multiple times a day as it does multiple flights. Achieving the same levels of operational reliability that we have on our existing A320 fleet is vital.”
How Do Doubled Jet Fuel Prices Hit Airlines? Part 3: Cargo Operations
By Bjorn Fehrm • Aerospace Analyst
October 8, 2026
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Over the last week, we analyzed how jet fuel prices have doubled since January (Figure 1) and how that has hit the profitability of passenger airline flights. Now we follow up with an analysis for cargo airlines operating dedicated main-deck cargo freighters.
A Boeing 747-400, originally operated by Virgin Atlantic, now hauling freight for New York-based Atlas Air. Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons
Cargo operations with main-deck cargo aircraft are either a separate leg of a passenger airline or are run as a dedicated cargo airline. Because cargo operations follow a daily departure wave rather than multiple daily passenger waves (morning, midday, evening, and late evening), they fly fewer flights per day.
This leads to lower freighter utilization, which enables airlines to fly older aircraft as capital utilization is less critical. But it also makes an airline with a large proportion of an older, less fuel efficient, fleet more sensitive to variations in jet fuel prices.
Figure 1: The IATA average and regional jet fuel prices based on S&P Platts‘market data. Photo credit: IATA
We use the Leeham Aircraft Performance and Cost Model (APCM) to model the Direct Operating Costs (DOC) of older and newer cargo aircraft like the Boeing 777F, 777-8F, and Airbus A350F. We also look at what happens when older freighters like the Boeing 747 face a doubled fuel price.
CEO Anders Forslund Explains Heart’s Hybrid-Electric Airliner Redesign
By Hanneke Weitering • AIN Science & Technology Editor
October 7, 2026
For two years, Heart Aerospace promoted one hybrid-electric airliner concept while working toward another. The ES-30, with two turboprop engines and two electric motors spread across four nacelles, remained the start-up’s public design through August, when it flew an all-electric demonstrator it called representative of that airplane. But Heart had quietly settled on a different production design long before that flight, CEO Anders Forslund told AIN.
Heart unveiled the updated airplane, called the ES-36, on September 23 alongside a deposit-backed purchase agreement from charter carrier JSX. The 36-seater’s “series hybrid” propulsion system returns to an architecture Heart had dropped in May 2024 in favor of the four-nacelle “independent hybrid” configuration. It marks Heart’s fourth design iteration in six years.
The ES-36 returns to the series-hybrid design Heart Aerospace dropped in 2024, using two nacelles instead of the ES-30’s four. Photo credit: Heart Aerospace
Forslund said the decision to go back to the series hybrid was made about two years ago, which would place it close to the September 2024 rollout of the X1 demonstrator aircraft. Through that period, Heart described the X1 as representative of the ES-30, most recently in its August 13 announcement of the demonstrator’s first flight. Airline customers, suppliers, and investors knew about the change, co-founder Forslund said.
According to Forslund, Heart publicly “kept it under wraps” because the company “wanted to make sure that we were not acting prematurely in announcing it.” He explained that they did not want to reveal a two-nacelle production design while preparing to fly a four-nacelle demonstrator. “We didn’t think it was time to go public with the new design that has a two-nacelle configuration until after we flew, because then the aircraft that we flew and the aircraft that we’re building would be different,” he said. “From a narrative perspective, it made sense to wait on that and keep that news until after flight.”
Boeing’s Path to Max 10 Certification Looks Clear Again
By Howard Hardee • Editor
October 6, 2026
Certification of the 737 Max 10 appears back on track despite a software glitch potentially affecting some Boeing narrowbodies—an issue the FAA has since deemed not safety critical, reducing the likelihood of another lengthy delay.
Indeed, the episode now appears to be a hiccup rather than a major setback, representing the more-positive outcome that Max 10 customers such as Ryanair had been hoping for.
Alaska Airlines, another carrier with Max 10s on order, had previously expected the large single-aisle aircraft to be certified by the end of September—suggesting that, barring further revelations, the Max 10 could join the Max 7 in finally clearing its last regulatory hurdle sometime soon.
As Leeham News and Analysis (LNA) reported last week, the Max 10 program stumbled late in the process of securing an amended type certificate from the FAA. It had previously looked like it was on the verge of clearing the path to service entry.
The second 737 Max 10 to be manufactured at Boeing’s North Line in Everett, as pictured in July. Photo credit: Jennifer Buchanan/Seattle Times/Pool
The issue centers on U14 flight-management software installed on certain 737 Max aircraft, including Max 10s and Max 7s. The glitch reportedly occurs sometimes when pilots load a new flight plan for a go-around, meaning the flight crew may have to intervene and manually fly the aircraft. Boeing flagged the issue in a bulletin to airlines, prompting some U.S. carriers to state a preference for 737 Max jets using previous software updates.
The FAA issued a special airworthiness information bulletin to airlines operating affected Max jets, as well as foreign regulators. The regulator also formed a Corrective Action Review Board composed of internal experts on airframes, mechanical systems, flight controls, avionics, propulsion, and flight testing to review potential safety risks. The board determined that, despite the FAA’s prior workload concerns, pilots encountering such a scenario would not be overtasked.
“Following a thorough review, a panel of FAA safety experts on Friday [October 2] determined a software issue in certain Boeing 737 Max flight computers is not a safety concern,” the civil aviation regulator said in a statement. “The FAA’s Corrective Action Review Board made that determination because pilots retain full control of the aircraft and the indications to the flight crew are clear and unambiguous.
“As with any situation, the FAA will consider appropriate action if it receives new information about this issue,” it added.
While the latest snag is apparently minor, glacially slow certification progress has proven to be one of Boeing’s defining issues for the 2020s, and the company would surely like to streamline the process moving forward.
About That 1,100-Aircraft Comac Backlog
By Karl Sinclair • Contributing Writer
October 5, 2026
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Securing market share in the commercial aviation business is one of the most difficult industrial endeavors one can attempt. It requires huge amounts of capital and thousands of talented engineers, among a laundry list of items. Success is far from guaranteed.
Just ask the likes of Bombardier, Mitsubishi, and Lockheed. The list of failed attempts is long and distinguished. Even the best can follow a segment killer, resulting in disaster.
A Comac C919 en route to Shanghai Pudong International Airport. Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons
Today, the market can be segmented along geographical lines. North America (Boeing), South America (Embraer), Europe (Airbus) and Asia (Comac), with occasional forays into enemy territory. Think Airbus in Mobile and Mirabel and Boeing’s failed joint venture in Brazil.
The most profitable segment is the narrowbody workhorse niche. It is also the most in demand.
Consensus 20-year market forecasts see a worldwide need for some 40,000 new aircraft, about 80% of which will be narrowbodies. In the workhorse segment, there are currently orders for over 20,500 of the newest generation of aircraft, with approximately 7,000 already delivered–leaving 13,500 in the global backlog.
In this segment, Airbus holds a commanding 59% share of the total orders. It also leads in deliveries, having handed over some 66% of those orders, and has 56% of the worldwide backlog.
Boeing has 35% of all orders, is responsible for 33% of all aircraft in service and has 36% of the backlog.
The annual race to declare oneself “Order King of the Year” and “Delivery Champion of the World” (not real titles, but you get the picture) is fierce. There is also the all-important backlog.
A robust orderbook indicates worldwide demand for your products. Strong and increasing deliveries illustrate technological and logistical prowess, and the ability to deliver on promises. A significant backlog demonstrates future growth and profitability in the sector.
Now, let’s consider how a fledgling airframer might seek to boost the perception of its business.