Odds and Ends: Airbus & Boeing White Elephants; BABC conference; CSeries stalking horse

White Elephants: Bloomberg News doesn’t pull any punches in this article.

747 No. 1 needs help: The Seattle Times has this long story about the first 747-100 that needs restoration.

BABC Conference: The British American Business Council has a conference Sept. 27 in Seattle, with focus on the Middle East. (Go figure.) Here is the link. Tim Clark, CEO of Emirates Airlines, is a key speaker.

CSeries Customers: Here’s a complete listing from Bombardier, the most detailed we’ve seen: The CSeries aircraft order book includes firm orders for 138 CSeries airliners from Braathens Aviation (five CS100 and five CS300 aircraft), Deutsche Lufthansa AG (30 CS100 aircraft), Korean Air (10 CS300 aircraft), Lease Corporation International Group (17 CS300 and three CS100 aircraft), PrivatAir (five CS100 aircraft), Republic Airways (40 CS300 aircraft), an unidentified major network carrier (10 CS100 aircraft), an unidentified European customer (10 CS100 aircraft) and a well-established, unidentified airline (three CS100 aircraft). The CSeries aircraft program has also booked options for 124 aircraft and purchase rights for 10 aircraft from these customers. In addition, the CSeries aircraft program has also achieved a conditional order placed by an unidentified customer for five CS100 and 10 CS300 airliners, as well as three letters of intent: for up to 30 CSeries aircraft from Ilyushin Finance Co; for up to 15 CS300 aircraft from Atlasjet; and for up to 20 CS300 aircraft from airBaltic.

AirAsia and CSeries: CAPA (Centre for Asia Pacific Aerospace) writes what we also figured: the buzz from the Farnborough Air Show about AirAsia and the CSeries seems to be more a ploy than a serious effort. Setting that aside, the CAPA piece is a pretty good analysis of the CSeries potential for low cost carriers.

The Sporty Game: AirInsight has an analysis on Boeing’s product strategy.

22 Comments on “Odds and Ends: Airbus & Boeing White Elephants; BABC conference; CSeries stalking horse

  1. Frequency vs capacity, the ever going battle for analysts and air travellers, I know what I vote for and it seems the market supports my view 🙂 Bad bad market that wont do as we want them to.

  2. href=”http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/farnborough-airasia-boss-confirms-talks-for-100-cseries-cs300-374312/”This is what Tony Fernandes had to say about the CSeries:

    “The advantage is that the CSeries can get into a lot of airports to which we currently do not have access”. … Bombardier have to prove that the operating cost of the aircraft will “make sense” for the airline, “We live and die by cost.”

    That suggests he was interested in the CSeries because of its short field performance and he doubts the per seat costs of the CSeries match up with the A320 NEO (The A319 is not considered).

    • We talked to Fernandes for a cover story for Airline Economics magazine; Tony told us that he wants to keep AirAsia “an Airbus company.”

  3. the A380 both white elephants. There’s a difference though, one of them has 20 customers will be produced 3 a month soon, met its performance targets from aircraft #1, set new standards in comfort and CASM and will most likely be added to the fleets of the big international carriers that haven’t ordered them already. Saying both are problematic makes one side of the public feel better I guess but doesn’t tell the full story..

    • The only real newsworthy item from Robert Wall, et al.:

      Barclays Plc estimates that by the time the 747-8 program breaks even on a cash basis, Boeing will have poured in more than $8 billion after delays.

      Rober Wall, et al., seem to lack the ability to look beyond the short-term view of the industry in addition to being seemingly oblivious to the issue of lack of near term slot availability for not only the A380, but for the 787 and the A350 as well. It’s interesting to note though, that for the last 4 years the orderbook for the 787 has shrunken, while for the A380 it has increased slightly.

      I sometimes think that we are too much impressed by the clamor of daily events. The newspaper headlines and the television screens give us a short view. They so flood us with the stop-press details of daily stories that we lose sight of one of the great movements of history. Yet it is the profound tendencies of history and not the passing excitements that will shape our future.

      JFK, March 23, 1962

      Speaking of JFK, today is the 50th anniversary of the “we choose to go to the moon speech” at Rice University. At 11:15 a.m. EDT today, the same time JFK gave the speech 50 years ago, NASA TV will air a high quality version of the speech..

      http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2012/sep/HQ_M12-177_Kennedy_Rice_Speech_50th_Anniversary.html

  4. To call the A380 and even 747-8I white elephants is a bit strange.
    These aircraft may not be selling well now, but inevitably will sell better in the future. I think the A380 has more potential over the 747-8I because it can carry many more passengers.
    Airports are becoming too crowded and so airlines will be forced to grow capacity through larger aircraft. Why aren’t more direct flights with bigger aircraft being considered a future possibility? You could have 10 or more A380 flights per day between London & New York eventually as demand increases for example. Why not? The A380 will be around for years to come and be kept relatively up to date with minor improvements as time goes on. We’ll see of course. It’s all about the long game!

    • It is indeed surprising, but it makes perfect sense. BAE has a strong foothold in the US, which is exactly what EADS is looking for.

  5. I really like the Air Insight article; it makes the exact same points I’ve been making in comments here. In particular, their analysis of would “would and should have happened” if Boeing had kept on schedule with the 787 tallies almost exactly with what I mentioned a while back. I agree, Boeing does need to stop dithering, they need to realize they’re the ones who have to play catch-up, and they need to get moving on the designs they’ll need to reclaim market dominance.

  6. American tax money to pay for EADS RnD? Yeah that will sell well in America of today..Buy american seems to be growing with every day now. If Oh bummer gets the boot I think the isolation policy will grow. Ending the wars and closing its borders.

  7. American political culture is generally well disposed towards the UK but openly hostile towards the continent, europhile cultural elitism notwithstanding. If BAE Systems’ ceases to be perceived as a British company and becomes part of a continental euro-conglomerate I would expect future contracts in the US to be a much tougher fight for them, especially in this xenophobic

  8. Boeing’s next major investment of five billion will be in a new wing. What will be the best place to put it, on the old 777, a new small airplane, or a new Y3?

  9. RH Hastings :
    Don’t know why super jumbos are called “eco” when airlines don’t cram them full with economy seats. Before they canceled, we can recall France’s Air Austral ordered the only true “eco” A380 with ~800 seats.

    It is all in the potential ( while fuel is still too cheap 😉

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