Odds and Ends: Second SPEEA vote results tomorrow night; Big LionAir-Airbus order finally ready

SPEEA vote tomorrow night: Update: Tomorrow is now today; the SPEEA vote results will be counted tonight (Monday).

The revote by SPEEA technical workers will be counted Monday night. Technical workers rejected the best and final offer from Boeing last month and authorized a strike. The professional engineers accepted the contract but authorized a vote, a technical maneuver that became moot with contract acceptance.

The issue leading to rejection was Boeing’s desire to shift from a defined pension plan to a defined contribution for new employees.

Boeing refused to improve its offer. Without the backing of the professionals, we think the technical workers will vote to approve the contract this time.

Vote results will be well into the evening.

Big Airbus-LionAir Order: At long last, the huge order we first referred to September 24 last year appears ready to be announced Monday, Paris time. Reuters, The Wall Street Journal and French papers are reporting the deal will be announced tomorrow. It’s for A320s (neos, maybe some ceos) and breaks Boeing’s monopoly with LionAir and the 737/737MAX. This is a huge win for Airbus.

24 Comments on “Odds and Ends: Second SPEEA vote results tomorrow night; Big LionAir-Airbus order finally ready

  1. RE the SPEEA vote – Un fortunately your guess is most likely correct. many feel sold out by the President with his early release of his ‘editorial’ in the Spotlite by printing it in the times blog right after the engineering vote

    http://www.speea.org/publications/files/Archive_Spotlite/Spotlite_2013/Spotlite_March_2013.pdf
    President’s Corner

    It’s not simple, it’s not
    easy and it’s not over . . . on page 3

    And then take a look at the poor ( but typical ) turnout for elections of 3 E-Board vice presidents ( about 13 percent ) of the 21,868 votes sent out/authorized.

    Only ONE change from the incumbents who ran.

    SPEEA will have a very rocky road after this fiasco of negotiations.

    • Speea techs vote to accept

      March 18, 2013
      SPEEA technical members vote to ACCEPT
      Boeing’s offer for a new four-year contract

      Northwest Technical Units
      Contract vote results Count Per (%)
      NW Technical Unit
      Accept 4,244 86.6%
      Reject 654 13.4%
      Abstain 2

      Note only about 55 to 60 pcnt of eligible tech voters bothered to vote

      Being sold out by so called speea leaders before the vote also results in apathy

  2. Boeing is losing battle against Airbus in single aisle market. There are a number of exclusive Boeing 737 operators that places order for Airbus 320/321 NEO in 2012. The trend continues in 2013. It looks like Jet Airways & Spice Jet in India is actively considering NEO. Wondering what Boeing’s strategy will be going forward. Silk Air is the only example where Boeing made exception. The Lion Air deal Airbus just won clearly indicates Airbus is gaining traction especially with GTF engine against 737Max. Boeing really needs to hit back and more aggressive if they want to maintain current 50-50 market share.

  3. I believe the issue is that earlier figures for GTF and Leap X on A320NEO showed parity at around 12% fuel burn savings.
    As I understand the current situation, GTF have increased savings on NEO to 15%.
    That could prove to be very difficult for MAX to match with the cut-down Leap X.
    Interesting scenario, but the results appear to speak for themselves, even though engine selection remains open on the new orders, probably because time is on the buyers side.

  4. The NEO’s have a significantly bigger fan. So a Leap equiped A320 will be more fuel efficient then a Leap equiped 737 MAX. The difference for a MAX Leap with 70 inch versus a NEO Leap 78 inch fan is about 4% sfc.

    Then NEO customers have the option to order the max 220-236 seat A321 NEO with good runway performance under all conditions, container capability, a wider cabin and 81 inch Pratt Pure Power very quiet and efficient GTF’s. The 737-9 MAX doesn’t come close despite what Randy says.

    IMO reasons airlines bought into the 737 MAX are fleet commonality with existing fleets, early slots vs the sold out NEO and a price advantages because Boeing had to defend market share.

    The 737-800 has the 2 rows extra seat advantage over the A320 helping CASM. But if Airbus announces a production hike on its 4 FAL locations (next announcement?), announces a 200 seat variant, or UA/DL switch, the NSA might be back on the agenda..

    • estimated Boeing rebates from list ( Blog by Javier ):
      2009 -38%
      2010 -39% -1% delta
      2011 -41% -2% delta
      2012 -45% -4% delta
      still Boeings share in the NB rush is <40% and stabilising there ( see pdxlight )

      now continue the progression and you get:
      2013 -53% -8% delta 😉

      • Ohhh, a fanbo… cheerleader quoting another cheerleader’s notes… yea that’s really realistic.

    • You keep bandying this about, but you continue to fail to acknowledge that the core of the two engines are different. The Leap-1B is significantly lighter than the 1A/C. It’s also not just about fan diameter, it’s also about wetted area, integration, and weight. I know it’s impossible for a fanb… cheerleader like you and Uwe to let go of your bias, but physics is physics.

      • No Howard,

        its the Boeing “if you can’t convince them confuse them”.

        Wedded area/ the weight are of minor influence compared to the bigger fans sfc advantages. That’s why Boeing is squeezing every tenth inch of ground clearance out of the 737, at high costs.

        The Leap-1B core is a compromise to be able to stuff it under 737 wing, “optimized for the 737” in RandySpeak.

        The 737MAX engine-wing-body interference for the 737 must have required a ton of CFD research to limit the damage.

        http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z160/keesje_pics/737A320_zps55a9340a.jpg

        I think a 4% difference in sfc between NEo and MAX is on the conservative side. (fan is 9 inch bigger and the sfc differences between CFM56-5 and CFM56-7 were larger. http://www.jet-engine.net/civtfspec.html

        Afterall, that is why Boeing wanted to go NSA over a re-engined 737 in the first place. The 180 on the 737 re-engining in July 2011, that forced Albaugh out of his seat, can’t hide the physics / BPR / sfc.

        http://leehamnews.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/1000-a320neos-737-replacement-at-paris-air-show/

        It not what Boeing wanted but they had no options.

  5. I suggest that Boeing are caught between a rock and a hard place. Airbus seem to have a significantly better offering but it is also costing a lot less to develop. With the orders that they have for the NEO the development costs look insgnificant, so if Boeing were to throw in the towel and turn to the NSA I think Airbus would be in a strong position to respond quickly.

    I’d say the only light at the end of the tunnel for Boeing at the moment is that with such a big difference in order intake Boeing will capture some customers who can’t wait for NEO delivery positions

    • IMO, it has looked that way for some time. Even the appraisers came around pretty quickly. 😉

  6. Airbus is grabbing Boeing single aisle customers, one after the other. Very little traffic heading the other way. It looks like the two decade old 50 percent NB market split is history and that Airbus will grab at least 60 percent of the single aisle market share going forward. Look for Airbus to significantly raise neo production output post 2015 over that of current ceo production levels.

    http://leehamnews.wordpress.com/2012/05/24/airbus-innovation-days-synopsis-of-a-lot-of-stuff/

  7. We’re convinced an EADS announcement further jacking up single aisle production is scheduled, Le Bourget, appears an opportune venue for this.

  8. Boeing risks getting sqeezed in between the CS300 and A321. Luckely Airbus has a 50(!) seat gab inbetween the A320 and A321, where the 737-8 and -9 are. That’s a lifeline. If Airbus plugs it, Boeing has to move early..

  9. Howard :Ohhh, a fanbo… cheerleader quoting another cheerleader’s notes… yea that’s really realistic.

    Just how pathetically immature are you really?
    I know I am going to get slammed by Scott for this but it really needs to be pointed out that your cute little “fanbo…cheerleader” name calling is neither an improvement nor more humorous nor more charming than the out and out “fanboi” name calling.
    If what people here post is so difficult for you to consume, why don’t you skip their comments? You already know who it is that you don’t like.
    At the same time, perhaps we could benefit from some of your pearls of wisdom rather than your heckling from the sidelines.

    • Howard altered his approach after a private email exchange we had with him over the persistent use of “fanboy.” We aren’t thrilled with the new approach, either, but it’s not out of bounds of our reader comments. We believe it’s unnecessary but so are some of the persistent comments of others (on both sides of the Airbus-Boeing partisanship). We prefer that everybody knock it off but we’re not going to play censor unless (as the sole arbitrator) someone steps over our Standards line.

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