Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Leeham News and Analysis
- Boeing unlikely to meet FAA’s 90-day deadline for new safety program April 18, 2024
- Focus on quality not slowing innovation, says GKN April 18, 2024
- Boeing defends 787, 777 against whistleblower charges April 17, 2024
- Dissecting Boeing CEO’s statement next new airplane will cost $50bn April 15, 2024
- Bjorn’s Corner: New engine development. Part 3. Propulsive efficiency April 12, 2024
Odds and Ends: MC-21 to be renamed; Boeing buys land; seat wars ahead?
MC-21 to be renamed: After creating a brand for the Russian Irkut MC-21, authorities have decided to rename the airplane the Yak 242, according to this article in Flight International.
The article is too brief to explain the reasons behind this, other than to indicate the MC-21 evolved out of a design that was designated Yak-242. The MC-21 is somewhat larger than the 242 and it is a direct challenger to Airbus and Boeing in the 150-210 seat sector.
Among our activities, we engage in branding. We don’t think this is a particularly smart move on Russia’s part. Returning to the Yak name is a throwback to the old Soviet Union and the history of Soviet airliners that left a lot to be desired. The “Irkut MC-21” name creates some distance to this history in the effort to sell the airplane outside the old Soviet political sphere.
The Sukhoi Superjet SSJ100, which has had some success selling beyond the sphere, nonetheless reinforces the history of troubled Soviet airliners. Production has been painfully slow and in-service reliability difficult.
We think the Irkut name should be retained, a move toward the future, not one toward the past.
Boeing buys more Charleston land: The US government shutdown delayed the land purchased by Boeing of federally property around the Charleston (SC) airport. Now that the government is open again, the purchase has moved forward, according to the Charleston Post and Courier. According to reports, Boeing now owns or has under contract slightly more land at Charleston than it owns at Everett.
Boeing has been shifting work from Washington to Charleston, and the trend toward purchasing land means this will continue. We continue to believe that when clean-sheet airplanes come out of the Boeing shop to replace the 737 and 777, production of these will be at Charleston. Hopefully the demand for the 737 replacement will be high enough that production will be split between Washington and Charleston. We can foresee a scenario where Boeing has a more equal split between the two locations, such as Airbus has with Hamburg and Toulouse.
But the immediate question is whether the 777X derivative will be built in Washington or Charleston. We’ve heard both scenarios but don’t have enough information to know which is correct.
Seats Wars pending? Airbus has called for an industry standard for 18-inch wide seats in coach. Plane Talking has an analysis of this. We’ll point out that Embraer already has 18-inch seats as standard in its E-Jets and Bombardier has 18-inch window-and-aisle seats plus a 19-inch middle seat for its CSeries. This makes the E-Jet and the CSeries the most comfortable domestic airplanes available, with the middle-seat bonus for the CSeries.
We haven’t flown coach internationally for years, but we do so domestically and have been crabbing about the 17 inch seat on the Boeing 737 for a long time. With the Airbus A330 and Boeing 777 nine-abreast essentially the same width, we believe airlines and their drive toward cramming as many seats in as possible to the total disregard of passenger comfort certainly merits international standards at 18 inches.
But we’re not deceived that this proposal is altruistic on the part of Airbus. Boeing’s ability to accommodate one more row of seats with a slightly wider standard than Airbus, reducing CASM in the process, is clearly the motive. When Boeing compares today’s 777 against the A350 in sales campaigns, it uses 10 abreast in coach vs nine abreast for the A350 and argues superior CASM costs. Customers tell us this indeed reduces the CASM advantage the A350 has at an apples-to-apples 9 v 9 (the A350 continues to maintain a trip cost advantage).
We agree with Airbus on the principal. But far chance it will happen.
For me this kind of marketing makes Airbus look weak. Allow the airline to make its own decision, and offer the product that meets their needs. They did well with the A320NEO, but it is often they seem to be late to the game thru the A330/A350 vs 787. Now, standardize around our product. Own your market info and build to meet customer requirements!!! Don’t cheapen yourself around common standards that favor you and not the need of the market.
Isn’t he MC-21/Yak-242 what was once called the MS-21?
I was also dubious about the Irkut MS-21->Yak-242 rebranding,
but the more I think about it, the more it seems a good idea…
Irkut is a strange choice just because it really only references a single factory/town,
and if a single brand is meant to cover all civil airliners going forward,
then they may very well be built at other sites in Russia,
Yak is coherent as a Russian design house independent of production site.
Irkut MS-21 also seems to suffer an excess of nomenclature beyond make+model,
as well as the name itself being a rather one-off reference to “21st Century”
which is hardly appropriate if you’re plan on selling MANY airliners in the 21st Century.
Yak as a primary designer largely fell into decline in the latter stages of the USSR,
so there is simply less ‘recent’ history for it’s name to remind anybody of,
as opposed to Ilyushin/Tupolev/Sukhoi, which also have more recent and CURRENT
military aviation products, which may be desireable to differentiate brand-wise from a civil product line.
I think this move will only be successful if Yak becomes THE civil airliner brand for UAC, possibly in additional to Superjet (although naming future Superjet’s something like ‘Yakovlev Superjet 130’ might be feasible). If they intent to mirror Soviet history and put out a range of models with different brands, e.g. Yak-242, Ilyushin-383 “Ekojet”, etc, that will be throwing away a branding opportunity, and Russia is not really at the level to have so many ‘independent’ aviation brands – indeed, why these companies have been consolidated as UAC.
And of course it also conveniently removes the whole C vs. S controversy 😉
Changing from Irkut MS-21 to Yak-242 like this “out of the blue” coud be seen as disruptive, but really, nobody thinks of Irkut as an airplane brand right now, MS-21 hasn’t even yet been sold outside of Russia, so there isn’t really much disruption.
C is a kyrillic S. Moscow is written MOCKBA (literally MOSKVA).
“But we’re not deceived that this proposal is altruistic on the part of Airbus.”
I guess nobody believes that.probably an Airbus marketing responds against the Boeing practise of putting in 40 inch Business class, 60 inch First and sub 17 inch wide economy seats and then widely claiming their aircraft offer superior seat mile costs. With remarkable unobstructed adoption by a huge majority of the press and public.
The 747-8i seats 469, the 777-9X will seat 407. And countless seat mile comparisons are based on it,. And absorbed as “typical, “official”.By all but the airlines.
The “International seat standard” has no other use then to address the blatant apple to oranges comparisons. A smart marketing move supported by passengers I guess.
In a like-for-like, apples for apples basis, the A350 at 9-across will have a 0.6 inch wider seat bottom width than the 777X at 10-across and the 787 at 9-across, and a one-inch wider seat bottom width than the current 777-300ER at 10-across.
A350: 18-inch seat bottom width; 2-inch armrests and 17-inch wide aisles.
777X/787: 17.4-inch seat bottom width; 2-inch armrests and 17-inch wide aisles.
EK 777-300ER: 17-inch seat bottom width; 2-inch armrests and 17-inch wide aisles.
“keesje”
The “International seat standard” has no other use then to address the blatant apple to oranges comparisons. A smart marketing move supported by passengers I guess.
If the A350 was, lets say 7 inches wider in cabin width, would Airbus not propose it as a 10 abreast aircraft? Why would they not make it wider from the beginning as to compete on a 10 or 9 abreast seat counts when they decided go forward with the model specification?
I suppose that the 11 abreast A380 proposal would never be mentioned again.
I do agree that we as human are getting (for most countries) larger (fatter) but that is not at all the fault of airplane manufacture. After all, they design an airplane with a maximum capacity. It is up to the airline to make the decision of seating width on their aircraft.
The A320 has 18 inch as have the A330, A350, A380 on the big majority of airlines.
The 737, 747-8i, 777X (10 abreast) and 787 (9 abreast not). Achilles anybody?
Red Alert in Randy’s Chicago office and their communication agency I guess.
In the past Boeing used to use this cross section in their PR materials,
E.g. this 777-A350 one (Randy forgot to mention the Airbus A350 sits 9 abreast iso 10 abreast for some reason..)
http://www.boeingblogs.com/randy/images/Extra-seats_ip.jpg
Btw. Airbus started a serious campiagn including youtubes..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gp-GiIsk7IE
I check always before booking to avoid less than 18”.
http://www.seatguru.com/charts/generalcharts.php (New)
I was once rescheduled from an A330 8 abreast to a B767 8 abreast. I try to avoid this experience in the future.
What a cute pseudo-scientific infomercial worthy of late night television.
I preferred the 767 7 abreast economy. The middle seats were often kept free in front of the economy cabin as long as possible, providing an extra place to put your stuff.
We are not talking about an inch. 777x and 787 should be able to seat 17.4″. That is a .6″ difference from this standard. I just don’t see this gaining much steam.
I don’t know where you got this 0.6″ from but even if true it means that 0.6″ is also missing from your seat neighbours seat and how are the armrests in this Boeing offering? My worst longhaul flight *ever* was with 10-abreast AF 777-300ER. We were rubbing our shoulders with my seatmate for the whole flight. It was criminally bad seating configuration.
AFAIK, 0.6-inches is the correct number on a like-for-like basis.
AF’s 777s will turn anybody, even KCTB, into an Airbus fanboy. My worst flight of any length, ever, was one. Makes a Twin Otter or a do-228 look like a Gulfstream. It was delayed due to technical problem as well!
We are talking about an inch when it comes to the current 777-300ER.
Like-for like:
A350 vs. 777X and 787: 0.6 inches in favour of the A350.
Like for like:
A380 vs. 777X and 787: 1.4 inches in favour of the A380**
**A380 at 10-across: 18.8-inch seat bottom width; 2-inch armrests and 17-inch wide aisles.
I’d like to make a different calculation. In my opinion the calculations above are correct for one seat in an endless row but not for just 3 seats in a row. The space for a passenger on the center seat will grow by 1.8 inch because both other passenger can move about 0.6 inch aside.
With 4 seats in a row like on a A380 with 1.4 inches wider seats the center seats gain 2.8 inches.
So even one inch more seat width is more than just a thumb’s width.
An 18 inch seat standard sounds like a good idea to me. After all, that was the historic dimension accorded stagecoach riders back in the day and modern day motor coaches have 18 inch seats. The airlines, of course, should be permitted to offer a narrower seat but the public should be so advised or warned in advance. That said, herein lies an opportunity: The airlines should be empowered to leverage non-standard seats as a means of imposing weight and/or disability restrictions on narrower seating so as to avoid potential safety issues or hazards to occupants’ health
Boeing never ceases to amaze me. They’re in the process of a 787 production ramp-up that is bleeding cash with no end in sight, yet they are still taking actions that seem to threaten the jobs of the people (the Washington workers) who are building the 787 – even though these people are far more efficient at aircraft construction than the Charleston crew. As a result, the Boeing workers in Washington State seem to be in a no-win situation: they lose jobs whether they produce efficiently, or not. So why not milk the job?
I mean, I can imagine thousands of Washington-state Boeing workers getting into the habit of milking the 787 Program by “just doing their job” and no more. Meanwhile, the losses on the 787 would forever increase. And what would it matter to the Washington workers who were going to lose jobs no matter what? In the meantime, the Washington workers get to work a lot of overtime because of all the inefficiency.
What a vicious circle it would be: Cash Bleed Forever!
Yeah, I am pretty sure that labor mentality, and the multi-billion dollar strike a few years ago, is why there is a corporate push to SC. No WA 787 workers are facing layoffs. It’s a question of the new line for the 777x.
While I do have issues with the unions I have been in and the Seattle Machinists reflected that experience, they also deserve full credit for doing and amazing job when they put their nose to the grindstone.
What no one has ever assessed is what the unions have done damage wise vs what management has done damage wise.
The strike was the union rabid thing at its worst, only trumped by the upper Boeing management colossal blunders. I have seen the petty politics and manipulation and grandstanding that has no place and we really do need a new model for unions, not the same old same old.
But the Pot calling the kettle black or maybe worse if you add the numbers up.
Under those circumstances, management is the one that can stop the spiral and you saw the results of it when they did. A long term contract and the Machinists have continued to save the 787 program not to mention the stellar work on the other programs including being key to the efficiency gains. I think its worked well for everyone.
At an advanced age, I too wonder, why should people keep bailing out management when its not reciprocated. Yes the unions need to join the 20th century but you don’t beat people to death and insult them when you are not so hot yourself. Like most of us, they not only want to do the work, but they want to hand something good onto the next generation as well as their sons and daughters and the community in which they live.
You do have to wonder what happens to Boeing when the hurricane eventually comes ashore in Charleston and takes down the place. There is a reason the locals call it “The Low Country” .
Maybe its time that management went to the unions and said, “yes we screwed up and thank you for saving the companies bacon and the unions agree they screwed up as well and return Boeing to one of the finest companies that is a product of United States of America, not just management, not just the unions but the US of A and what it has stood for in the past and could in the future.
Right all most points. But Boeing does not have a problem against the workers. I’m pretty sure Boeing would be thrilled if most of the workers in Washington moved to Charleston (SC) and keep the good work there. it is the Washington State run Unions that Boeing (and its customers) do not want to keep dealing with.
Although Jim Mcnerney still is the CEO of Boeing, plenty of other high executives have retired (been forced too?) or moved from the position they once had.
We endlessly compare the products of Airbus and Boeing at this site, often in great detail and with much speculation. Perhaps some discussion on their relative (not just absolute as with Boeing’s) labour practises and management might be informative. It appears that Airbus benefits from both better relations and, even more important, more robust methods of settling disputes before they hurt the company and its employees.
David,
You make a good point and I think you are “spot on”. I don’t think Boeing executive management really gives a damn what the engineers or workers say – or suggest – while Airbus does take the advice of its engineers and doesn’t seem to go to war with its workforce. As a result, Airbus was able to learn from the mistakes it made on the A380 and apply lessons learned to the A350 development effort. On the otherhand, Boeing executive management never seems to learn a damned thing – they keep hosing up the show at every turn. I mean, opening up two 787 assembly lines during initial production is the dumbest move I’ve seen in years – it’s a violation of Manufacturing 101. Are these Boeing executives retards?
I’m serious…are the Boeing Executives [nuts*]? I mean, even to consider building the 777x wing anywhere other than Boeing is the move of a mouth-breather. Not only does Boeing lose configuration and cost control if it outsources the wing, it also loses the experience and the profits that is has outsourced.
Meanwhile…the Boeing war on its workforce continues.
*Edited as a violation of Reader Comment rules.
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Meanwhile, waiting for winter… 😉
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqkx_qERhOY
Louis Gallois: The Triumph Of A Socialist CEO
http://www.beggarscanbechoosers.com/2008/03/louis-gallois-triumph-of-socialist-ceo.html
“Can you imagine any American CEO voluntarily accepting a $273,000 salary, when they could be earning $3.4 million a year?”
Costco’s former CEO and co-founder Jim Sinegal
Amazon’s founder and CEO Jeff Bezos
Even though they are no longer with us I’ll include Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard
I could find many more if I felt like doing a search.
LOL!
Billionaires in the US make their money off capital gains and currently pay only 20 percent in long-term capital gains taxation vs. 39.6 percent in likely taxation for ordinary income. Thus your typical billionaire prefers to minimise “ordinary income”, while giving donations to charity, investing in government bonds, receiving cash from operations abroad etc., with the result being that many of these people, in fact, don’t seem to pay much taxes at all.
So, was that your “case”? 😉
Why don’t you bother to educate yourself on these particular CEO’s before generalizing, or are you too busy with your rant?
“He once read Das Kapital, cover to cover.”
Oh, come on, 099. Really…..
Jeff Bezos, Net Worth $27.2 B. That’s your typical CEO right there.
http://www.forbes.com/profile/jeff-bezos/
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BTW, I’m not ranting at all. The quote i posted was in context to the seemingly miserable relationship between labour and management at Boeing.
Hence, we are not talking about self-made billionaires — who are obviously totally irrelevant to the topic at hand — but about the senior executives who at Boeing who earn between 100 to 1000 times what the average worker earns. Perhaps this massive income inequality is one of the reasons for the seemingly lack of empathy the people at top have for the average Boeing worker and also their seeming disdain for workers representation.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/05/rich-people-just-care-less/?_r=0
The above comment was a response to Mike.
Scott, as Aero Ninja points out, my whole comment was really only a quote from an article.
Here’s another one: 🙂
And the link:
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/18f5aa10-c8eb-11db-9f7b-000b5df10621.html#axzz2j5dyOwJo
If the topic at hand is really the seemingly miserable relationship between labor and management at Boeing, then talking about CEOs in the US who seem to have a reasonable view of money, billionaires or not, and run companies that seem to treat their employees fairly well, is no less germane then talking about the French CEO of EADS.
If Boeing is having much more trouble with its unions than its competitors are, isn’t it possible that the fault lies with the company, rather than with the unions?
The case in point about Louis Gallois was just to illustrate the incredible difference between executive compensation in Europe and the United States.
The other point was to explore the consequences between the exorbitant executive
compensation and the growing income inequality in the United States; the relevance of which may partly have led to the seemingly miserable relationship between labour and management at Boeing.
As for your billionaire entrepreneurs; they’re usually living and breathing their brand 24/7. That’s diametrically opposite to the management at Boeing. They neither started the company, nor seemingly do they care much about the long term viability of the company. In short, therefore, they are in essence living off other people’s accomplishments. Hence again, the issue of how much these billionaire entrepreneurs that you mentioned take home, is totally irrelevant to the topic at hand.
“If Boeing is having much more trouble with its unions than its competitors are, isn’t it possible that the fault lies with the company, rather than with the unions?”
Isn’t it also possible the fault lies with the greed of the unions? Boeing, or any other company is in business to make money. This is nothing wrong with that.
The unions represent their own interests. Union bosses make nearly as much as company CEOs, yet are not fully responsible to the union membership.
http://nation.foxnews.com/politics/2011/03/03/fat-cat-union-salaries-exposed
OV-099, I don’t know about you, but I actually live and work in the US, so I’m deeply concerned about the direction corporate culture in the US is taking. Even though I’ve never been part of a union, my work life is directly influenced by the relationship between management and labor in US companies. So, for me this issue is more important than quoting political soundbites and articles or making easy generalizations.
I think most, CEO’s are paid way, way too much, but that is different than saying all of them are. There are many good examples of corporate leaders in US companies who put a higher priority on the long term health of the company, which includes the workers, than on simply manufacturing good quarterly results, and who make the company a good place for employees to work. Many of these good leaders also eschew exorbitant salaries and turn down stock options for the good of their companies. You may think that talking about such leaders is irrelevant in this context, but that is just your opinion. So what if the people I mentioned are also founders of their companies? It does not make their examples less good. A company like Boeing needs leaders more like the ones I mentioned.
Oh, by the way, I know that CEO’s of company’s who are also founders are more likely to be concerned with the long term health of their company. After all, the company is their baby, into which they poured themselves entirely, time, emotion and money. So, yes things are different in a situation like Boeing, where the current CEO had little to do with building the company. It’s just that the article you chose to quote to make your point lumps all US CEO’s together based on ideology.
Mike, the article(s) I chose to quote from implicitly talked about the CEOs making at least a hundredfold, or so, more than what the average worker earns. Therefore, it didn’t lump all US CEOs together “based on ideology” (whatever that’s supposed to mean); not the atypical self-made billionaire CEO, nor the CEOs working in smaller private firms that may not be listed on a stock exchange, and where the management is subscribing to the idea of corporate social responsibility (CSR).
“Therefore, it didn’t lump all US CEOs together “based on ideology” (whatever that’s supposed to mean);”
It’s pretty obvious that the article you quoted from is implicitly holding up one ideology (socialism), exemplified by the European socialist CEO Louis Gallois, over another ideology (capitalism), exemplified by (apparently all) US capitalist CEO’s who practice greed as a “religion”. I know this was not accidental.
What a lot of nonsense. You are obviously seeing only what you want to see.
Today, the economies of most industrial countries are considered mixed economies. In Western European nations the government usually plays a larger role in the economy than in the United States, but that doesn’t make them “socialist”.
The fact of the matter though, is that the issue of exorbitant executive compensation at least is in the public discourse in the US.
http://www.nationofchange.org/make-work-pay-us-ceo-pay-vs-rest-us-1318001689
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http://money.msn.com/now/post.aspx?post=5771c643-4acc-4838-b1c6-ade9d4955afb
It’s pretty obvious that the article you quoted from is implicitly holding up one ideology (socialism), exemplified by the European socialist CEO Louis Gallois, over another ideology (capitalism), exemplified by (apparently all) US capitalist CEO’s who practice greed as a “religion”. I know this was not accidental.
Now who is seeing only what they want to see. I never said Europe is socialist. You may think I did, but I didn’t. I used “European socialist” to describe Gallois not Europe. Pay attention to what the article you first quoted is actually implying. It’s implying more than just exorbitant CEO salaries in the US. There are many ways to make the simple point that US CEO’s are paid way too much, yet you chose that particular quote.
The nonsense bit is you starting to talk about “socialist ideology” vs. “capitalist ideology”. Mr. Gallois is not a socialist, but a social democrat, but I’d guess you wouldn’t know the difference.
As for the “quote”, you appear to be overlooking the fact that I specifically quoted one specific paragraph in bold text. That was the relevant part (not Gallois) to the seemingly miserable relationship between labour and management at Boeing, and why that’s not the case at Airbus.
“After all, Gallois is a lifelong socialist. He once read Das Kapital, cover to cover.”
Again, you chose to quote this article proclaiming Gallois as a socialist.
Why do Europeans cow tow to Americans insistence to stick with medieval feet and thumbs in a 98% metric world. Americans had no qualms to force that anachronism onto the rest of the world after 1945. So why support unilateral enforcement? Use full cm, or better still mm to the nearest silly inch so the world understands what you are talking about.
OV-99’s whole comment was part of a post from a blog written by a Texan back in 2008, written shortly after the tanker contract had been awarded to Airbus, an presumably written some time before it was taken back.
http://www.beggarscanbechoosers.com/2008/03/louis-gallois-triumph-of-socialist-ceo.html
OK, Everyone: Time to move on from the political debate.
Hamilton
I apologize. I did not see your request until after I sent my last reply.