Odds and Ends: A350 business case, Ryanair, Boeing and more

Airbus A350: Aspire Aviation in Hong Kong has a lengthy look at the Airbus A350 program.

Airbus launch aid: Airbus says it has complied with the findings of the World Trade Organization and cured those elements found to be illegal. It calls on Boeing to do the same. (The case against Boeing is under appeal.) Update: and the war of words continues. Here is Boeing’s response.

Boeing and IAM 751: Reaction to the agreement reached between Boeing and IAM to extend a new contract to 2016, settle the NLRB complaint and put the 737 MAX assembly in Seattle is winning accolades from everybody except some Republicans who was pissed they won’t have an election campaign issue to talk about next year. Never mind what’s good for Boeing.

Plane Talking, the entertaining if somewhat cranky blog from Down Under, has this piece about Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary opining on this and that.

Speaking of Ryanair: Heard in the hallway at the Credit Suisse conference: O’Leary is already circling over the American Airlines bankruptcy, looking to pick up 737-800s cheap if American doesn’t keep payments up and any are repossesed.

12 Comments on “Odds and Ends: A350 business case, Ryanair, Boeing and more

  1. And may I ask you to identify the Republicans that were “pissed” at the settlement? I haven’t seen any comments by anyone that hasn’t been positive. Is this some self invented Media Matters B.S.?

  2. [O’Leary] doesn’t think the c919 cuts it as a brilliant new 180 seats plus airliner, but it is useful for putting pricing pressure on Airbus and Boeing, who know he is worth at least 200 of their single aisle products as a total replacement order for Ryanair’s current fleet of Boeing 737-800s.

    Right.

    Just to recap: He previously said that he was in discussions with Airbus (which Leahy flatly denied saying that he thinks it’s the one order he thinks Boeing should win), then said he’ll buy Boeing. That didn’t happen because Boeing also thought that with the terms and conditions O’Leary had in mind, this was an order they could do without. Since then, Boeing and Airbus have sold shedloads of A32S and 737s (old engines and new) without Ryanair buying any.
    So for the last 10 months or so, O’Leary has been talking about the Superjet and the C919, which everybody pretty much knew was just negotiating tactics. Now he effectively *says* that it’s negotiating tactics.

    I wonder how this one’s going to pan out.
    My guess: this is just setting up an excuse for him to buy Boeing/Airbus after all (rather than “ending the relationship”, as he claimed he would do during negotiations with Boeing last year). He will then publicly boast what a clever little guy he is because he threatened to buy Comac and thus got a much better deal out of Boeing/Airbus. Whether or not that deal is in reality better than the deal Boeing offered him last year is anyone’s guess, but at least he can rely on Boeing/Airbus not confirming one way or another because neither company relies on the same stagy tactics as O’Leary/Ryanair. (Not even Leahy in his most Leahy-esque moments.)

  3. WTO tit for tat:
    The initial litigation had a low profile in the last month
    but the Euro “playback” seems to have vanished from the press.

    Any significance?

  4. Both Boeing and Airbus knows that O’Leary are going to put them through a jousting match according to Irish rules, followed by a clobbering session to the winner of the bout.

    As long as neither of them are willing to enter the fray, O-Leary will be left behind with no slots and no game as they focus on other customers.

    I hope that O’Leary’s courtship with COMAC culminates into an aircraft deal. Then he will experience the level of service that commensurates with the aircraft price that he is asking for.

    Thereafter, if he rescinds on the order, the jousting matches between the heavyweights may begin. Alternatively, he could relish in the micro-management of technical delays brought about by the service levels of COMAC at EIS.

    • I can see him getting left out in the cold by A & B… so there’s a good chance he actually *will* end up with SSJs or C919s. And to honest, I would quite like to see that happening. Despite living and working where I do, I can’t help cheering on the Sukhoi and Comac underdogs!

    • He’ll find financing Comacs an uphill task. No-one else wants them – not even the big Chinese airlines who have ordered just five pieces each. They literally don’t have any resale value. (Orders weren’t just coming from the airlines,)

      • Duh! Of course Chinese interests can finance the planes. They have cash the may be willing to waste.

  5. FF :
    Duh! Of course Chinese interests can finance the planes. They have cash the may be willing to waste.

    China is very interested in leveraging their dollars before they become volatile.

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