By Scott Hamilton
April 18, 2024, © Leeham News: Boeing appears unlikely to meet a 90-day deadline to submit a comprehensive plan to address safety concerns, insiders tell LNA.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Feb. 28 gave Boeing three months to address “systemic quality-control issues,” a move sparked by new safety concerns following the Jan. 5 accident of Alaska Airlines flight 1282. A 10-week-old 737-9 MAX was minutes into climb-out from the Portland (OR) airport when a door plug blew out, prompting explosive decompression of the cabin. Nobody died but there were injuries and damage throughout the cabin.
“FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker told Boeing that he expects the company to provide the FAA a comprehensive action plan within 90 days that will incorporate the forthcoming results of the FAA production-line audit and the latest findings from the expert review panel report, which was required by the Aircraft Certification, Safety, and Accountability Act of 2020,” the FAA said in the Feb. 28 press release.
“The plan must also include steps Boeing will take to mature its Safety Management System (SMS) program, which it committed to in 2019. Boeing also must integrate its SMS program with a Quality Management System, which will ensure the same level of rigor and oversight is applied to the company’s suppliers and create a measurable, systemic shift in manufacturing quality control.”
Now 45 days later, LNA is told Boeing is unlikely to meet the deadline. Furthermore, Boeing’s engineering and technicians union has had no outreach from Boeing seeking its input into the plan.
By Tom Batchelor
April 18, 2024, © Leeham News: The crisis at Boeing forced the entire supply chain to re-evaluate manufacturing processes and double down on quality control – but that is not yet stifling innovation, according to Peter Dilnot, CEO of Melrose PLC, the parent company of aerostructures and engine components supplier GKN Aerospace.
Melrose is most of the way through a comprehensive restructuring, and the company has emerged as a pure-play aerospace business that has consolidated production sites and exited “non-favorable” contracts.
“We don’t want to be everywhere,” explained Dilnot during a briefing in London attended by LNA this week, which was intended to set the scene ahead of July’s Farnborough Airshow.
“One of the reasons I think aerospace is so much in vogue at the moment is that it is one of the very few markets where you’ve got structural growth. Aerospace is unique in that we’ve got these long order backlogs, structural growth and as a result a growing top line for industry participants.”
From 50 production facilities pre-COVID, GKN is now down to 33, and it will soon be at 31 sites. Its four global technology centers remain in the UK, where it is headquartered, the US, the Netherlands, and Sweden.
The positioning of Melrose as a leaner business after the spin-off of its automotive unit is producing positive results. The company posted revenue of £3.35bn ($4.29bn) for 2023, 17% growth over the previous year, and adjusted operating profit of £420m (up from £186m in 2022), in its full-year results last month. Operating margin reached 12.5%, up from 6.3%, and profits of £700m are being targeted by 2025.
By Scott Hamilton
April 17, 2024, © Leeham News: A whistleblower appeared before the US Senate today recommending that the entire fleet of Boeing 787s be grounded until inspections can be performed to assure safety.
The whistleblower, Sam Salehpour, is a Boeing engineer who worked on the 787. He claims he was moved off the program by Boeing in retaliation for raising safety concerns about the 787 and the 777. Boeing denies this charge.
Salehpour went public with his safety charges a week ago. He focused on the small gaps between fuselage sections and other areas on the airplane that failed to meet Boeing’s own specifications. Production gaps, where parts of the airplane are mated, are common. Boeing and other manufacturers use shims to fill these gaps.
In 2020, Boeing revealed that in some cases, the gaps were greater than the 0.005 inches of its own specifications. Gaps of 0.008 inches were found. The gaps are the thickness of a piece of paper. Boeing initially grounded eight 787s for inspection.
In October 2020, Boeing suspended delivery of the 787 for what would eventually be 20 months. Deliveries already had been deferred by customers because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ultimately, Boeing has 110 787s parked that were completed. After a lengthy process with the Federal Aviation Administration, the FAA approved Boeing’s fix. The fuselages of the 110 airplanes have to be inspected and measured. If repairs are necessary, it takes longer (5-6 months and in some extreme cases, 7-8 months) to complete than it does to assemble the airplanes in the first place. There are about 40 787s still awaiting rework.
April 12, 2024, ©. Leeham News: We have started an article series about engine development. The aim is to understand why engine development now dominates the new airliner development calendar time and the risks involved.
To understand why engine development has become a challenging task, we need to understand engine fundamentals and the technologies used for these fundamentals. We started last week with thrust generation, now we develop this to propulsive efficiency.
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By Bjorn Fehrm
April 10, 2024, © Leeham News: We are doing an article series comparing the capabilities of the Airbus A350-1000 and the Boeing 777-9. The A350-1000 has not been a hot seller, and a lot of analysts asked why. Is there a capability gap or what is the reason?
At the same time, the reworked Boeing 777X had reassuring initial sales at the November 2013 launch at the Dubai Air Show, where Emirates ordered 150 777-9 out of a total show orderbook of 259 aircraft for Emirates (150), Qatar (50), Lufthansa (34), and Ethiad (20). The orders have since grown to 481 as of late 2023.
The A350-1000 has had a recent resurgence in orders and switches from the A350-900 orders, whereas the 777–9 has seen several delays due to engine and certification problems and is now scheduled for 2025 delivery instead of 2020.
Does the 777-9 or the A350-1000 hold the upper hand in a long-term race between the largest widebodies after the Airbus A380 and Boeing 747-8i stopped deliveries? We use our Aircraft Performance and Cost model to compare the two to understand their present performance and potential for upgrades.
April 9, 2024, © Leeham News: “Since [Aircraft Certification, Safety, and Accountability Act] ACSAA became law, Boeing has supported implementation of the legislation, including providing full transparency for the FAA’s expert review panel in its evaluation of our safety culture and other safety measures,” Boeing said in a statement responding to questions from The Seattle Times. “Over the past several years, we’ve taken a number of significant actions to strengthen our safety practices and culture. (Emphasis added.)
“We put safety and quality above all else, and continue to make significant changes to our culture, production and processes as we strive to improve.”
I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read this in the second major front page article by The Seattle Times dissecting how Boeing has become an industrial embarrassment.
Make no mistake. I want Boeing to be a healthy, thriving company. Commercial aviation needs a healthy Boeing to compete with a healthy Airbus. As a reporter and commentator, I want to balance the negatives with the positives. But since the 2018-2019 MAX crisis, there has been little positive to find about Boeing to write or say.
The reason I couldn’t believe my eyes with Boeing’s statement above, referring to the Federal Aviation Administration’s Expert Panel, is buried within the 50 page report. It also is at variance with decades of my experience, and that of other journalists, in dealing with Boeing.
April 5, 2024, ©. Leeham News: We started an article series about engine development last week. The aim is to understand why engine development nowadays dominates the needed time and the risks involved in new aircraft development.
To understand why engine development has become perhaps the most challenging task, we need to understand engine fundamentals and the technologies used for these fundamentals. We start this week with thrust generation.
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By Bjorn Fehrm
April 4, 2024, © Leeham News: Korean Air confirmed an order for 33 Airbus A350 in the week, 27 of which are the larger A350-1000. The order is significant on two accounts:
First, 27 A350-1000 and only 6 A350-900, where analysts have for years asked why the -1000 isn’t selling.
Secondly, for a carrier that has a rather 50-50 fleet of Airbus and Boeing planes, its large widebody was the Boeing 777-300ER, whereof it has 27 out of 37 Boeing 777 in total. Korean Air now chooses the A350-1000 to replace the 777-300ER. Why not the 777-9?
Was this a question of availability (the 777-9 should have been delivered in 2020 but has had several delays; the present plan says 2025), or was there a technical-economic reason for Korean Air’s decision? We examine the characteristics of the two planes to find the answers.