UPDATED: Boeing posts quarterly loss; increases Commercial production rates

By Bryan Corliss

July 26, 2023, (c) Leeham News — The Boeing Co. on Wednesday reported a quarterly loss of $99 million, due in part to spending tied to production rate increases in its Commercial Airplanes division.

Boeing said that rates on its 737 line in Renton are increasing to 38 a month. The 787 program has increased rates to four a month, with a plan to increase that to five a month by the end of this year.

Boeing is working with suppliers to get rates up to 50 a month on the 737 line sometime in 2025-26. CEO Dave Calhoun said during Wednesday earning call that demand is there for even higher rates.

“I’d love to get to 60 and the market is there for it,” he said. “The industry is short of airplanes by a relatively large margin.”

However, Boeing and its suppliers need to stabilize production at currently projected rates before considering going beyond what’s already been announced, the CEO said. “We’re going to work hard on stability.”

For this year, Boeing said it expects to deliver between 400 and 450 737s, along with 70 to 80 787s.

  • Deliveries up at BCA
  • China: Boeing hopes for delivery restart
  • 777-X production to restart in 2023
  • Calhoun ‘intent on proving’ trans-sonic truss 
  • BDS continues to struggle

Read more

Europe’s airline recovery: a tale of two continents

Subscription Required

By Judson Rollins

Introduction 

June 24, 2021, © Leeham News: The recovery in passenger air travel from COVID-19 has been wildly uneven. A dramatic recovery in passenger volume – although not yield – in many domestic markets has been offset by a continuing sharp slump in international traffic.

The latter has proven particularly crippling to European airlines, most of which have miniscule domestic markets. Intra-EU travel, although generally permitted by member countries, has been slow to recover as business travelers have failed to return in meaningful numbers.

Meanwhile, long-haul travel remains hampered, most recently by an ever-changing landscape of “red zone,” “orange zone,” and “green zone” labels, plus other restrictions placed on arriving travelers.

The bright spot is strong leisure travel demand, which is propelling the continent’s low-cost carriers much closer to recovery than their legacy counterparts. This LCC-versus-legacy split brings into sharp relief the state of European airline traffic.

Source: European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control

 

Summary
  • Vaccine rollout ahead of many developed markets; certificate program launching next week.
  • Legacy carrier recovery is dragging out, weighed down by business and long-haul travel woes.
  • LCCs performing relatively well, with some on track to fully recover next year.
  • Train service unlikely to displace airline demand.

Read more

Cracks in Ryanair’s lowest cost model

By Bjorn Fehrm

September 27, 2016, ©. Leeham Co: Ryanair has canceled 2,000 flight over the last few weeks. The background is a lack of pilots, after a change of holiday accounting period.

The cancellations come against a backdrop of pilots leaving for other companies (notably Norwegian) and an EU ruling in favor of Ryanair’s flight crews.

Read more

2017, a tougher year for European airlines?

By Bjorn Fehrm

January 5, 2017, ©. Leeham Co: The last two years have seen increased profits for the airline industry. Lower priced fuel gave the industry time to breath and to finally earn a reasonable Return on Invested Capital (ROIC).

Earnings as a percent of revenue for the industry has been increasing from 5% on a worldwide basis in 2014 to around 10% for 2016, Figure 1.

Figure 1. Airline industry profits. Source; IATA presentation October 2016.

The US and European airlines have been topping the earnings with 18% on revenue for the third quarter of 2016. There are many signs this will not continue in 2017, especially for European airlines. Read more

11th 737 MAX on the assembly line as Boeing gears up for delivery next year

Oct. 11, 2016, © Leeham Co.: The 11th 737-8 MAX is already on the Boeing production line at the factory in Renton (WA).

Southwest Airlines will receive the first 737 MAX next year. Boeing photo.

Southwest Airlines will receive the first 737 MAX next year. Boeing photo.

This one is for Lion Air, the Indonesian Low Cost Carrier that’s ordered 201 of the airplanes.

Previous 737-8s that already are built are also for LCCs Southwest Airlines of the USA.

The initial line up of customers scheduled to receive the MAXes next year is in stark contrast to decades ago when the names on the sides of the airplanes would be American, United, Lufthansa or Japan Air Lines. It’s illustrative to the changing airline industry.

Read more

Ryanair: from 17 clicks to 5, we are changing

By Bjorn Fehrm 

20 Jan 2015: On the second day of Growth Frontiers 2015 conference in Dublin, Ryanair former CFO, now Board Member Howard Millar, told us about a changed company.

“Ryanair is today the largest airline in Europe with 82 million passengers carried during Fiscal Year 2014 (April 2013 to March 2014). Growth is at record level and RyanAir is planning to grow to more than 100 million passengers during the ongoing Fiscal Year 2015. Read more

Very un-British report on Ryanair-AerLingus

This amused us a lot–from the free British e-newsletter from Airline Fleet Management.

Talking Point
Pesky pursuer Ryanair claims Aer Lingus is a done deal

Ah, Ryanair. It’s like the Granny no one wants a sloppy kiss from, or the colleague no one wants to sit next to at the Christmas dinner. In fact, many of its hardened customers don’t really like it that much. Bottom of the friends list though is Aer Lingus.

To Aer Lingus, Ryanair is a sleazy old man with relentless ambition and bad intentions. Despite continuous rebuttals, it keeps trying to woo, or win Aer Lingus by force.

Ryanair now says it is “confident” that its €700m takeover bid for Aer Lingus will gain approval from the European Commission, despite the regulator recently sending the airline a list of objections based on rules governing competition.

The carrier said it has devised a number of remedies, including: “new airline bases in Dublin, new entrant competitors on over 40 routes to/from Dublin, Cork and Shannon, as well as specific competition solutions that guarantee increased price competition”.

It has until December 31 to finalise these plans before the watchdog makes its final decision.

Ryanair already owns 30 per cent of Aer Lingus and has had two failed attempts at a takeover. In 2007, the Commission turned down a bid for completion issues and in 2009, Ryanair dropped its second bid.

Poor Aer Lingus, when is it going to convince Ryanair that ‘no means no’?

Mary-Anne Baldwin, Editor, Airline Fleet Management