Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Bjorn’s Corner: Faster aircraft development. Part 11. Interior Preliminary Design.
By Bjorn Fehrm and Henry Tam
October 10, 2025, ©. Leeham News: We do a series about ideas on how the long development times for large airliners can be shortened. New projects talk about cutting development time and reaching certification and production faster than previous projects.
The series will discuss the typical development cycles for an FAA Part 25 aircraft, called a transport category aircraft, and what different ideas there are to reduce the development times.
We will use the Gantt plan in Figure 1 as a base for our discussions.
Figure 1. A generic new Part 25 airliner development plan. Source: Leeham Co. Click to see better.
Airbus Balances Automation and Airmanship
Subscription Required
By Chris Sloan
Oct. 09, 2025, © Leeham News: Automation, advances in the prospect and single-pilot operation, and overall aircraft safety are great for the airline and commercial aerospace industries.
But the downside is that pilot skills are subject to deterioration. Hands-on experience and skills become necessary in an instant when emergencies begin to pile up.
US Airways flight 1549, the so-called Miracle in the Hudson, is one example where advanced design in flight envelope protection in the Airbus A320, combined with the flying skills of the pilots, led to a successful water ditching alongside New York City.
Qantas Airways flight 32, an Airbus A380, suffered an uncontained engine failure that triggered more than 100 identified faults in the advanced computer system. However, the five pilots in the cockpit required experienced thinking and top-flight skills to land the airplane safely.
These are just two examples of technical advances combining with pilot skills for the ultimate safety of the airplane.
Airbus acknowledges the tension between automation, computer advancements, and the necessity for pilots to maintain hands-on flying skills.
Excerpt: The Rise and Fall of Boeing and the Way Back
Oct. 7, 2025, (c) Leeham News: Boeing’s decline into the existential crisis that befell the company in March 2019 was decades in the making. The 1997 merger with McDonnell Douglas Corp. is pegged as the tripping point. But the foundation pre-dated the merger.
In Scott Hamilton’s new book, The Rise and Fall of Boeing, and the Way Back, takes a deep dive into Boeing’s rise from its 1916 birth through the piston era and the dawn of the jet age, when Boeing’s “family” approach to airplanes thrust it past the Douglas Aircraft Co., despite nearly losing its advantage. After peaking at more than 60% of the jet market share, Boeing began a long descent.
Rise and Fall not only documents strategic and tactical wins and losses, it goes into the development of the 737 MAX and its now-infamous MCAS that led to two fatal crashes in October 2018 and March 2019, plunging the company into a path that nearly brought it to bankruptcy. The leadership eras of Phil Condit, Harry Stonecipher, Jim McNerney, Dennis Muilenburg, and David Calhoun are reviewed and critiqued by suppliers and former Boeing employees. The current CEO, Kelly Ortberg, arrived on Aug. 8, 2024, just five weeks before the contract with the 33,000-member IAM 751 touch labor union expired. The union struck for 53 days before a historic contract was reached.
Ortberg’s not insignificant challenges include returning Boeing’s production rates to levels that predated the March 2019 grounding of the MAX; returning Commercial Airplanes and the Defense units to profitability; paying down billions of dollars in debt; and deciding what new airplane programs to launch, and when.
An excerpt of Rise and Fall sets the stage. The book in softback and eBook formats is available here.
FAA begins to ease restrictions on Boeing
Subscription Required
Part 2 of 2
By Scott Hamilton
Oct. 06, 2025, © Leeham News: Boeing is making progress toward its recovery from six years of back-to-back-to-back crises, but slow certification of three airplane derivatives has been a major roadblock. Last month, the Federal Aviation Administration began to ever so slowly ease its strict oversight of Boeing.
The first Boeing 777-9 taxis out for its first flight of the program. Credit: Leeham News.
Certification of the 777X requires a series of flight tests specific to what’s called Type Inspection Authorization (TIA), issued by the Federal Aviation Administration. Typically, TIA is a one-step authorization. The FAA is granting this in stages, to the frustration of Boeing and CEO Kelly Ortberg.
Related Story
Certification of the 737 MAX 7 and MAX 10 derivatives was paused during the 21-month grounding of the MAX 8 and MAX 9 following the March 10, 2019, crash of the second MAX 8 within five months. The two accidents killed 346 people; the root cause was traced to a design flaw within software that pushed the nose of the MAX down in the event a potential stall was detected.
During the lengthy investigation of the MAX crashes, further flaws of a less serious nature were identified. The FAA required these to be fixed before the 7s and 10s are certified. This process has not gone smoothly. According to information provided to LNA, the unintended consequences of new legislation adopted by Congress during the MAX investigation appear to be causing repeated delays in certifying the MAX in addition to some nettlesome technical issues.
Additionally, action by the Trump Administration to eliminate jobs across the government, including the FAA, as part of its Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) killed some jobs tied to aircraft certification.
To summarize:
Bjorn’s Corner: Faster aircraft development. Part 10. Preliminary design.
By Bjorn Fehrm and Henry Tam
October 3, 2025, ©. Leeham News: We do a series about ideas on how the long development times for large airliners can be shortened. New projects talk about cutting development time and reaching certification and production faster than previous projects..
The series will discuss the typical development cycles for an FAA Part 25 aircraft, called a transport category aircraft, and what different ideas there are to reduce the development times.
We will use the Gantt plan in Figure 1 as a base for our discussions.
Figure 1. A generic new Part 25 airliner development plan. Source: Leeham Co. Click to see better.
Staffing shortages affect Air Traffic Control, NOTAMS, updates–and Boeing
Subscription Required
Part 1 of 2 Parts
By Colleen Mondor
Oct. 2, 2025, © Leeham News: The Trump Administration’s drive to cut employment in the federal government slashed numbers across virtually every agency and department.
But for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which has perpetually been understaffed across its air traffic controllers (ATC), technicians, and certification units, the impact exacerbates an already tenuous situation.
Credit: Federal Aviation Administration.
For airlines and passengers, delays have skyrocketed at key airports, followed by a surge in cancellations. Operating costs skyrocketed for the airlines as scores or aircraft sat on taxiways waiting to take off or backed up on the tarmac awaiting a gate occupied by airplanes that couldn’t take off.
Runway incursions have increased, as have near-collisions in mid-air.
Shortages of aircraft certification employees at the FAA have slowed Boeing’s recovery from six years of sorting out its crises and “ticketing authority” as the FAA scrutinizes the company. FAA certification of the Airbus A321XLR was slow, adding to the one-year delay of its entry into service.
***************************
Special Note
The US federal government shut down at midnight on Sept. 30 when Congress failed to pass a Continuing Resolution to fund the government. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) laid off more than 11,000 employees. Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA) has been under strict FAA scrutiny since March 2019, notably for 737 MAX production, safety, and quality control issues. The FAA revoked BCA’s ability to certify its new airplanes as airworthy before delivery to customers, assuming this responsibility.
On Sept. 29, the FAA partially returned this authority to Boeing, which now may certify the airplanes on a weekly alternating schedule. With the government shutdown, the question of FAA’s oversight and certification of Boeing airplanes arises. Boeing declined comment, but Boeing has told customers that at least for now, production rates, certification, and FAA oversight activities will continue uninterrupted. This may change if the government shutdown is prolonged.
****************************
Staffing shortages among controllers at Newark Liberty International Airport will cause existing cuts in flight service to be extended through October 2026, Reuters reported on Sept. 25.
This was the latest in a litany of news articles highlighting staffing issues within the nation’s air traffic control system. The Washington Post reported in July that nearly 20% of recruits at the FAA training academy failed to complete the training program, contributing to shortages. It then followed up on Sept. 21 that the academy was struggling with instructor shortages.
USA Today asked in May, “Why air traffic control is under so much stress”, while NPR spoke with controllers in July and declared the “…push to modernize equipment won’t fix deeper problems.”
Perspective on Boeing’s 737 replacement
By Scott Hamilton
Sept. 30, 2025, © Leeham News: The Wall Street Journal billed the story as an exclusive, and it did contain details previously unreported.
But the fact that Boeing is working on a 737 replacement isn’t new, even if Boeing has been super-quiet about it. The breadcrumbs have been dropped into public sight all along, and within aviation circles, more has been discussed as well.
Under former CEO David Calhoun, he and other executives discussed the 737 replacement in the form of the transonic truss brace wing (TTBW) single-aisle concept. The very wide, thin wing had about 35 feet of folding wing (as opposed to the folding wing tips on the 777X).
Boeing and Airbus are designing future wings with long folds to allow much greater wingspan than today’s wings. The future folding wings will have a much long fold than the Boeing 777X. Credit: Leeham News.
What Boeing didn’t say publicly, but which was known within aviation circles, was that Boeing was also designing a conventional wing-and-tube 737 replacement in parallel. Boeing always has a Plan A and a Plan B under study, so this was no surprise. But a former 737 program engineer told LNA that Boeing needed a Plan B in this case to serve as a baseline against which the TTBW could be compared for efficiency.
When Calhoun’s successor, Kelly Ortberg, killed the TTBW, Boeing said research and development on the wing would continue. Of course, it would be a replacement for a 737. Why else continue this very specific R&D? Not inconsequentially, Airbus has long been designing a folding wing “Wing of Tomorrow” for the A320 replacement.
Furthermore, the underlying research into the TTBW’s fuselage and systems may be applied to a new airplane, just as elements of the Sonic Cruiser made their way into the 787 in the early 2000s.
Manufacturing and Materials Takes Center Stage in Next-Gen Aircraft at Global Aerospace Summit
Subscription Required
By Chris Sloan
Sept. 29, 2025, © Leeham News: At the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Global Aerospace Summit in Washington, D.C., on September 9, Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury reminded attendees that propulsion alone cannot deliver the performance leap expected from future aircraft. He said Airbus is targeting a 20–25% overall fuel efficiency improvement and noted that “half of it will come with the propulsion. When we integrate the bigger engine to be more efficient at the engine level, there are some losses. So the other half will come from the wing, aerodynamic efficiency, weight, and those kinds of things.”
This “other half” is why advanced materials and manufacturing are stepping into the spotlight. The conversation, moderated by Kevin Chow, EVP and Head of Aerostructures and Systems, Commercial Aerospace, ST Engineering, centered on next-generation programs, which are no longer just about engines or even airframe design. It is about how to build aircraft faster, lighter, and with greater precision to meet historically high production rates.
(Left to Right): Daryl Taylor, Senior Vice President, U.S. Commercial Operations, Airbus; Eric Hein, Director, Strategy and Product Development, National Institute for Aviation Research, Wichita State University; Tom Gentile, Chairman, CEO, and President, Hexcel Corporation; and panel moderator Kevin Chow, EVP and Head of Aerostructures and Systems, Commercial Aerospace, ST Engineering.
Slowing History, Faster Targets
Airbus aims to produce 14 A220s per month in 2026 and 75 A320 family aircraft per month in 2027 — a dramatic increase from current output. Daryl Taylor, Senior Vice President of US Commercial Operations, said that “historically production rates in this industry take a long time to get up to speed.” He said Airbus is acting now to be ready when the following clean-sheet aircraft is launched: “We know that with that type of backlog we expect in the future, we’re gonna have a fully proven automated set of solutions to deploy.”
In Mobile (AL), Airbus operates two final assembly lines for the A220 and A320 families and is building a third that will open soon. Taylor said that “just throwing more people at the problem is not the answer. At Airbus, we think [automation] is critical to the core of our execution and ramp-up, so we are investing heavily in our own capabilities and making acquisitions. We’re not relying on others to do that.”
Bjorn’s Corner: Faster aircraft development. Part 9. Conceptual phase Certification work.
By Bjorn Fehrm and Henry Tam
September 26, 2025, ©. Leeham News: We do a series about ideas on how the long development times for large airliners can be shortened. New project talks about cutting development time and reaching certification and production faster than previous projects..
The series will discuss the typical development cycles for an FAA Part 25 aircraft, called a transport category aircraft, and what different ideas there are to reduce the development times.
We will use the Gantt plan in Figure 1 as a base for our discussions.
Figure 1. A generic new Part 25 airliner development plan. Source: Leeham Co. Click to see better.
*** Special thanks to Andrew Telesca for helping with this article***
How’s the next new aircraft produced? Part 7. Other OEMs.
Subscription Required
By the Leeham News Team
Sept. 25, 2025, © Leeham News: In Part 1 of this series, we described the production system for Embraer. Should Embraer or any other OEM enter the race for the next aircraft in the single aisle segment, it will pose the same challenges as for Boeing and Airbus.
Embraer has recovered from the collapse of the Boeing-EMB joint venture, and the E195-E2 is selling well. But the regional jet market is limited. Embraer is considering whether to move up to the mainline jet sector. Credit: Embraer.
The aircraft must integrate new types of engines, and large parts must be made with the new types of composites that enable high-rate production.