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
HOTR: Eviation claims “almost” 300 orders worth more than $2bn; Boeing vs Airbus
By the Leeham News Team
Nov. 10, 2022, © Leeham News: Eviation, the developer of the all-electric airplane Alice, today added another 20 commitments to its tally for the aircraft. The latest is from Australia’s Northern Territory Air Services. The commitments are in a Letter of Intent.
A short time before this latest commitment, Eviation issued a press release stating it had “almost” 300 orders (not “commitments and orders”).
“Our order book passing the US$ 2 billion mark is a significant commercial milestone,” said Gregory Davis, President and CEO of Eviation.
“With almost 300 aircraft now on order, the Alice is receiving strong customer endorsement,” Eviation VP Eddie Jaisaree said.
The press release is a little ambiguous on figures: “almost” 300 airplanes and “passing $2bn.”
Using 300 and $2bn for the math, this means the airplanes are $6.67m each. That’s $741k per seat. This compares with $506k per seat for a 787-9 (296 seats, $150m true sales price) and $309k per seat for a 737-9 (178 seats, $50m true sales price). The ATR-42, with 48 seats and a sales price as low as $12m, is $250,000 per seat.
The capital cost of the Alice is awfully pricey and makes the economics challenging, not even counting the maintenance costs of replacing the batteries after a short period of time.
When asked about these facts, Eviation’s PR firm provided this response from the company.
“Our cost is competitive with aircraft in the same class as Alice, and customers will see significant cost savings in operating and maintenance costs. For example, Alice will reduce operating costs by two-thirds when compared to traditional aircraft.”
LNA’s Bjorn Fehrm has analyzed the operating cost of electric, hybrid, and hydrogen-powered aircraft in a series of articles. His conclusions are that these methods are a lot more costly than promoted.
Boeing v Airbus
Market share
Following Boeing’s announcement last week that it won’t introduce a new aircraft until the middle of the next decade, the reaction by some was stunning. (Wall Street loved it.) Consultant Richard Aboulafia predicted that Boeing’s market share will drop to 30%. Kiran Rao, the former product strategist for Airbus who is now an advisor to airlines and lessors, predicted market share will drop to between 20% and 30%. A Boeing official said he’s OK with a share of 40% for now.
CEO David Calhoun wants a game-changing airplane that will bring at least a 20% improvement and as much as 30% over today’s airplanes. LNA wrote this week about how a plane design can bring at least 20% improvement with today’s engines that evolve to reduce engine fuel consumption by 10%. This plane could be offered this decade.
If Calhoun thinks Boeing can bring a step-change airplane to market next decade, that’s fine. Airbus can do the same. It’s been waiting to see what Boeing does first. In the meantime, Boeing’s market share will continue to slide.
Single-aisle airplanes typically account for up to 85% of the sales and production by Airbus and Boeing. The market share figures cited above focus on single-aisle aircraft. A Boeing official said during last week’s investors conference that the 737 MAX 7 and MAX 10 will recover Boeing’s market share. This assumes certification of both aircraft, which LNA considers likely.
Production drives market share
But neither will restore Boeing’s market share. The market already has spoken. More to the point, production will drive market share. And Boeing’s production plans are struggling.
Boeing guided investors to look to 2025 when 737 production should be at 50/mo. This is below the 52/mo in place when the MAX was grounded worldwide in March 2019. Boeing was gearing up to produce the airplane at 57/mo by the end of 2019 and considering 63/mo.
Airbus plans to be at rate 75/mo by the end of 2025 for its A320 family. This is a 60% market share. And, reported here for the first time, Airbus wants to go to rate 83/mo. LNA doesn’t know the target date but estimates it would take another two years at historical rate breaks. This is a 62.5% market share to Boeing’s 50/mo. There’s nothing to prevent Boeing from upping its rate in the same two-year period, but Boeing hasn’t guided beyond 2025.
As Airbus expands its market share and customer base during Boeing’s recovery, flipping Airbus customers back to Boeing—even with a new airplane that Airbus certainly will match—will be a daunting challenge.
Boeing will have to count on Airbus customers being willing to eschew their installed base with Airbus in favor of a healthy duopoly. This is a risky bet by Boeing management.
It also may be a bad bet.
And don’t forget about Airbus’ ~150 A220s per year – puts Airbus on about 1,000 NB per year at rate 75 for the A320, or 63% share, rising to 65% at rate 83 for the A320
Love the A220 , but its never going to get to 150 per year . Never
The investment to grow from from 30-40 pa mark is huge and wont be made , might creep up to 50 with a bigger model ( which is a better choice of spending money)
Dukeofurl
The major investments have been made. They have FAL in Mobile capable of max 5/month. The Montreal FAL is capable of max 10/month and they have created a pre-stuffing centre for fuselage sections as a way to facilitate assembly.
In 2022 they added 120 orders. Even at a sales rate of 100/year they will need to get to to a build rate of about 120 to keep up and get through the existing backlog in a reasonable time.
Airbus very clearly states they hope to get to 14/month (168/year) by mid decade.
https://www.airbus.com/en/newsroom/stories/2022-07-the-a220-confirms-its-breakthrough-on-the-small-single-aisle-market
You dispute this will every happen and feel they will get to perhaps rate 50/year. Do you feel they are being dishonest or just not very good at estimating what is possible.
So they are saying ‘ doubling the current rate’
Thats saying that the current rate is close to 85 per year
This such abject nonsense no reasonable person would accept thats the case now …nor the future
Actual numbers this year ( 2 months to go) is something like HALF the 85 pa
No doubt the dreamers will remind us of the famous Airbus *6 quarters* per year for deliveries !
Dukeof*:
“So they are saying ‘ doubling the current rate’”
Original article:
“This expansion will allow Airbus to ‘more than double’ the current A220 production rates to 14 aircraft per month by the middle of this decade”
reading comprehension. don’t get blinded by your prejudices.
Caught with pants down. Oops 🤣🤣🤣
If they are saying ‘double the current rate’ to 14 pm… which comes to 168 per year
Half that is 85 or so per year.
That is NOT the current rate as Airbus says in its own 3Q result its doing about half that
From the 3Q statements of 9 month deliveries
” 34 A220s, 340 A320 Family, 21 A330s and 42 A350s”
So the question is why do people believe falsehoods even when given the latest information from Airbus itself.
https://www.airbus.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2022-10-airbus-reports-nine-month-9m-2022-results
Maybe google translate can be blamed for stupidly not checking
If a colleague or a student make an estimate by time proportion in this manner for a specialized industry, I would suggest to backtest using historical data (in order to avoid the proposer from being a laughing stock). How about using BA’s 9mth and year end delivery result from 2018? Apparently not everyone knows/follows this rule. 🤣
DoU said: “So they are saying ‘ doubling the current rate’..”
No, that’s not what AB said, and you are working hard to Not Understand what they *did* say. See pithier than me commenters below..
So digging the whole deeper
14 pm is *more than double* , its more than triple the current rate and closer to 3.5x
Thats why its so unachievable.
Who said they are “doubling the current the current rate”? You’re making up stuff out of thin air. You’re digging a deeper hole for yourself.
Furthermore why don’t you go ahead and backtesting your hypothesis using BA’s 9mth and full year delivery #?? Anyone old enough can see thru’ your fallacy.
Airbus explecitly stated plans to increase to 14 per month, and I think they will raise it further after introducing the A220-500.
They why are they producing currently around 45 per year , which is say 4-5 per month – Check the 3Q numbers
150 Airbus A220s per year = 12.5 per month.
We’ll see how it goes. 😉
Dukeofurl said, on November 10, 2022:
“Love the A220 , but its never going to get to 150 per year . Never ”
Oh, I think it will; for one thing, doing that will be a top-notch
use of *increasingly rare* resources.
BTW, didn’t DoU make a similarly definitive statement regarding “retractions” of a certain ABC report on the Boeing 737MAX’s safety issues that would be quickly forthcoming.. something like six or more months ago? “Stay tuned!”, I think were that commenter’s words.. anything new to report on that front, DoU? Just trying to keep abreast of recent developments, here..
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-27/boeing-737-max-in-mid-air-emergencies-as-us-set-to-launch-probe/101175214
My mistake; it was five months ago.
Boeing’s loss of market share will be matched by COMAC’s increase.
Not in exact proportion, but something like that, I think.
We only see a tiny bit, mostly from the outside, of what
transpires.
“And, reported here for the first time, Airbus wants to go to rate 83/mo. ”
Wow!
That would certainly be good news for engine makers.
And would significantly cut waiting time for new orders.
Are those the same engine makers that are struggling to deliver enough engines to meet today’s production rates?
Yes, same ones.
But that doesn’t mean that they’ll still be struggling in 2 years, does it?
No one in touch with companies seems the supply chain ‘struggles’ improving in the near future. For now they are happy with ‘stable’
Same goes for those johnny come lately P2F new conversion lines , actual production is a ‘snails pace’ despite the order backlog
Sounds like someone is very frustrated/embittered by the extent to which one OEM is leaping along while another OEM keeps tripping over itself 😏
Not at all. The A330 P2F will work out fine, Should have been in train a decade ago and would have given the 767F and 767 P2F some competition.
But it didnt
DoU:
“Should have been in train a decade ago”
Not enough A330 feed stock afaik.
767 feed stock was available as those where displaced by A330
Now those 767 feed stock … are largely gone. Times have changed. Some are particularly slower than others to recognize what’s coming.
You can add Go First India to that growing list of carriers grounding aircraft for engine issues and lack of spare parts..
40%of their a320 fleet currently grounded..
No end in sight anytime soon..!!
A massive ramp up in engine production will surely cure that dilemma.!!
Go First India: Fleet size 59
Capital idea.. .Bryce
Airlines are grounding aircraft left and right for engine issues and lack of parts..!!!
Indigo, Air Tanzania , and many more likely to follow.
And you think they can cope with those kind of production increases..
.🧚 maybe some pixie dust would bring that fantasy to reality in today’s aviation market !!!
And now, for today’s lesson: things change!
More specifically: current problems don’t necessarily have to perpetuate (except at BA, of course).
Reality is so called issue is additional inspections.
Truth not lies/alternate truth.
Thanks for the reality check re Eviation orders. Maybe an article about the size of the emerging Greenwashing Market in Aviation is needed? It seems to be bigger than the ‘Supersonic Travel Soon’ market. It is Aviation after all, so make believe will always be part of it.
Exactly .
I see some airlines now touting their ‘electric’ orders as credentials for how sustainable they are along with the unrealistic EIS dates ….even if the potential is for the shortest route with a small plane subsidiary. keeps the influencers buying long haul and feeling good. Even one airlines carbon offset program for passengers to buy separately doesnt even pay for a complete CO2 offset via new tree planting but 1/3 to 1/4 is now only for ‘green programs’ . Full offset is getting too expensive, apparently
Yup. For investors & shareholders in this green-washing enterprise remember the adage: “go woke, go broke”.
If I understand correctly, the narrow body market is where Boeing makes most of its money and then hands it all out to shareholders. Hasn’t anybody asked the question how Boeing intends ti finance a new aircraft program in the next decade after its lost so much market share and handed out all its profits to shareholders. I think its time for a group of investors to come in and oust the entire Boeing board if they expect Boeing to stay in the passenger aircraft market.
I think if Boeing is to get back to being a major purveyor of large commercial passenger aircraft its management has to do a number of very difficult things immediately
1. Raise new equity (reversal of the share buyback program of the past decade). I know it is not popular as it will dilute existing shares resulting in drop in share price, but hey, company needs a cash injection that is not of the debt kind
2. Boeing will need to look at some of its business lines, package them and sell them off (divestiture)
3. tighten operating costs – will have to rethink operations and try to reduce operating costs or how they do business
4. Stop underbidding on their defense contracts
5. Write off all the non-recoverable costs and return to standard accounting instead of persisting with their program accounting shenanigans
6.Accelerate production and delivery of the 737-8/9 models, drop the -7 complete the -10 development with all the necessary systems mandated by FAA, EASA, CAAC etc. Also assess the 777X and in my opinion kill that off and develop the 787-10 (not a perfect replacement but almost good enough).
7. With cash from 1 & 2 pay down a significant portion of its existing US$57 billion debt
8. Form joint venture partnership with cash rich and engineering endowed companies to develop new Single aisle replacement for the 737. Here I am thinking of companies from nations who have aviation ambitions to compete with the Chinese, like the Japanese (Mitsuibishi), Indians (Tata and Hindustan), Koreans (KAI) in Asia, Then there is also Embraer in South America and from Europe BAE Systems, Leonardo and for a low cost production center Antonov in the Ukraine. This approach should help find some of the US$15 billion plus needed to fund a new Single aisle 737 replacement. off course Boeing will have to share the returns from this development with the partners thus lowering it profits, but it will help stop the bleeding loss of market share and thus revenue and income from this segment of the market.
Note that these companies would develop a 3-4 model product line that would compete with current Airbuses A320/321 and A220 models and the mythical A322/Winged of the future B757 MoM plane.
Essentially I am recommending a more severe financial restructuring such as that undertaken by Rolls Royce over the past 3 years after the problems it has had with its TRENT 1000 series engines on the B787. At this stage I don’t think Boeing is an attractive acquisition or merger target for any of the large aerospace companies around unless of course the management can talk itself into the arms of a large hedge fund, but that would probably result in the gutting of Boeing into a company that we probably won’t recognise (probably killing off the Commercial Aeroplane business like other OEMs BAE, Lockheed and others have done).
At today’s share price, BA would need to issue more than 320 million new shares just to pay off its debt. That would represent 50% more shares than are currently in circulation. The stock price would plummet, and an nasty array of investor lawsuits would be unleashed.
Each Boeing financial report includes reporting using unit cost accounting as well as program accounting.
Naturally for mature product lines program accounting would reduce the
future booked profits . ( you would think that was obvious but too complicated for simpler minds to understand)
https://theaircurrent.com/tac-explains/program-accounting/
Hint , when giving ( financial) advice to others make sure you know what you are talking about
Duke.
This explaination you posted is deeply flawed. It focuses far too deeply on the 787s use of PA. In real usage, only active production blocks contribute to losses and gains. Blocks that are 100% delivered aircraft are frozen and not used for accounting purposes.
Qouting people with a story does you little good if their story has flaws
They are content to be a rent seeker.
> They are content to be a rent seeker. <
It's good to see the term 'rent seeker' re-entering general circulation. Thanks for using it.
“Each Boeing financial report includes reporting using unit cost accounting as well as program accounting.”
False. You’re making stuff up again.
” the narrow body market is where Boeing makes most of its money”
Back when I seem to remember a narrative centered around “big money is in widebodies” ( around the time A320 gained over 737 🙂
Indeed. The goalposts have to be mobile in order to be able to score a goal!
But but … maximizing cash return to shareholders is eternal!
Boeing should build an aircraft with existing engine derivatives of the CFM and GTF with 35K to 38K thrust. Build a bigger aircraft to fit in code C gates. Maybe folding wingtips, maybe twin aisle. A light aircraft with 3,000nm range. The popularity of the A321 with a few more seats, or the decision to build the MAX 10 just to gain a few rows over the MAX 9 shows that a slightly bigger aircraft is where the market is headed.
Agree. Looking at the current (IMO questionable) MAX backlog & claiming they must wait for 20% better engines might prove a catastrophic strategy.
What if Airbus launches the A220-500 and a A320 stretch just right 200 seat variant in Paris. Pratt announced a more radically improved PW1100. Massive orders and A320 (+$$) conversions. Boeing didn’t see it coming, again?
Boeing must start not only observe the market, to fully understand it, but also act accordingly, not hide. Sometimes it seems they’re into https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/groupthink.
By now, I feel they might need US government support in some form to recover. Although they’ll never admit we might start to see signs, they’re moving from Chicago to Washington already.
> Boeing must start not only observe the market, to fully understand it, but also act accordingly, not hide. <
Agreed- if something like a free market is in force. That's a stale idea from textbooks now, though not at all a wrong one. See "cartel" in various forms, and hence "marketplace immunity"..
Keesje…
Analysis of the prelim config data for the 220-500 seems to indicate that its not as good as the -300 on seat/mile metrics.., There may be very valid reasons to question the proposed -500 based on todays understanding of it……
You seem to have much better understanding of this topic than the Airbus customers that would like to see that type offered ?
A simple explanation of program accounting used by Boeing
https://theaircurrent.com/tac-explains/program-accounting/
Profits taken early in a new program are missed out later in the life cycle.
Plus in financial reports Boeing does have side by side numbers from unit accounting. So its all out in the open
Thankfully, program accounting can only be used to cook profit — not debt.
We have a crystal clear rendering of BA’s unsustainable debt mountain and its crippling interest payments.
Mind you, figures can still be window dressed so as to create the illusion of cash flow in a given quarter, but that trick eventually runs out of steam — and seasoned investors smell a rat when a company continually runs quarterly losses but still tries to maintain that it has positive operating cash flow.
All in all, the Emperor is stark naked and imprisoned in a glass cage.
> Profits taken early in a new program are missed out later in the life cycle. <
"life cycles" are indefinite and subject to change, so how can program accounting
provide an accurate accounting (assuming that's the goal)?
If you never build a new replacement, a program can be extended and re-extended.
Program accounting is a modern day emperor’s new clothes.
Pedro, You guys are misunderstanding program accounting as BA runs it. There are 2 forms of it. The 787 method, and the rest of the company. The 787 uses a BS thing called a deferred production balance and a deferred tooling balance. Both are creepy ways to avoid writeoffs. The rest of the company method makes actual sense. New production blocks are added to the existing production blocks when sales require advanced purchases to be made. People building big bone parts, “Lifeline”parts is what they are called, want orders for 50 to 100 shipsets of things like gear legs, wing skins, landing gear trunions and other like stuff. Program accounting allows expenses like these to be distributed across the airplanes in the block as an average up front cost applied to each unit in the block. The block is finite, and each block stands on its own. Its actually pretty good at getting a P&L made for the average airplane in the block. It also is murky enough that the exact unit cost of any specific line number cannot be easily dissected by outsiders. BA has all the numbers for each specific unit, and could use unit cost accounting but the long lead item purchases need a way to be rationally applied. I think program accounting is fine when combined with accounting block discipline where costs in one block is not transferred outside the block. Thats exactly why the 787 program accounting with the DPC numbers is so bad. It gives you a way to completely manipulate costs and move them into the future without containment by productiion block barriers. Its absolute crap.
Thanks for this comment, esp the part about the different, sketchy 787 accounting.
What’s buried under program accounting:
– included in BA’s “inventory” are “amounts credited in cash or other consideration (early issue sales consideration) to airline customers totaling $3,427 (million) and $3,290 (million) at September 30, 2022 and December 31, 2021.”
I.e. customers’ compensation for delivery delays (737 MAX, 787 & 777X) etc. not recorded as expense as incurred but kept on the balance sheet (and inflated the profit)
Boeing does provide unit accounting numbers for the commercial aviation
here it is
Commercial Airplanes Unit Cost vs. Program
https://www.boeing.com/investors/accounting-considerations.page
Guess what the 2018 results , a recent peak , shows for commercial $7.8 bill profit under program accounting.
However unit accounting numbers were higher at $8.8 bill
As I explained, for the financially challenged , mature programs REDUCE the program profit.
Dance around the fire over that !
Under BA’s so called “unit-cost accounting” method:
BCA Losses of most recent quarters in 2022
$ million
(1,245)
(503)
(1,144)
Isn’t it great to point at year 2018 but not 2019 to 2022?? 🤣🤣🤣
2018 was the last year of *profit.*
perhaps your google translator didnt give that correctly ?
Shows that lower profits recently came from program accounting than would be achieved under unit accounting methods
case closed.
Boeing provides both types of accounting numbers ( since around 2012 , so no mystery …check
Program accounting reduces profits for mature programs …check.
Focus on the current conundrum BA is in, not past boom period thanks to BA C-suite blind chase of FCF at the risk of L.T. sustainability. Did you miss the Seattle Times’ “Boom period for Boeing is over Leading analyst tells aerospace suppliers” from early 2017??
Hah. How come an external guy could foresee what’s ahead better than BA? Food for thought. Is Calhoun going to repeat history AGAIN?
“The block is finite, and each block stands on its own”
per type family there is only ONE block.
That block gets extended depending on a ( marginally realistic ) future sales outlook.
“side by side”
couple of pages further on with caveat : these are non GAAP numbers ( take with grain of salt )
Actually average predetermined cost over the project accounting number is booked from the get go. The excess goes into the deferred cost asset basket. ( _as a result_ profits are designed to be more or less constant ).
Things turn funny when production cost skyrockets as could be observed on the 787. per order de mufti booked cost remain constant. ..
Yavier Irastorza did some good diseminations at the time.
( link Yaviers Blog, mostly GA flying, marathon stuff )
Uwe…… Perhaps I was unclear…..Each accounting block is composed of multiple extensions, or occasionally, reductions. When the 787 adds a 100 airplanes to the accounting block BA does not go back through all the closed accounting block segments and revise previous quarters by restating earnings or losses. Inactive production block segments are not impacted by block extensions long lead costs or the massive gap reworking costs. In this way each production block segment is finite and once completed, it is not subject to revisions. Only active production block segments are affected by current operations. You will not be able to spread the abnormal production costs backwards in time to closed completed production block segments….. maybe thats clearer.
DoU said: “Profits taken early in a new program are missed out later in the life cycle.”
How does one know there will be a profit at all? Is there a profit on the 787, as it stands? If not, how can one take it “early” ?
Yup. LNA had a great piece tabulating all program write-offs (as one-off item nonetheless). Typical heads I win, tails you lose kind of smoke and mirror.
Your claim is baseless and without foundation.
And Boeing would have had higher profits (2018 its boom year) and smaller losses ( 2020 its worst year) under unit accounting.
read the numbers which show this , as Boeing does produce unit and program accounting in its financial statements
https://www.boeing.com/investors/accounting-considerations.page
DoU said: “Your claim is baseless and without foundation.”
What was my “claim” ? As far as I know I did not make one; what I did was ask a couple of questions.
While you’re here though, Duke: do you have anything yet on the “retractions” you said
would be imminently forthcoming from the ABC article about the Boeing 737MAX’s recurring safety issues? That was five months ago, IIRC.
Thanks in advance, as I patiently await your reply.
B7
Werent you some sort of financial guru
Your questions are just flim flam to make claims, which you walk away from when the sham is exposed.
But never mind you have no credibility anyway
@Duke: Ratchet back your language. You are breaking Reader Comment rules addressing other commenters.
Hamilton
Duke.
The whole reason for the existance of the DPA and the DTA is the lack of an adequately large production block to absorb them when the blocks were active and BA was unwilling to take the chargeoffs needed to zero those when created.. You seem to act as if the future airplanes accounting blocks are impacted by the deferred amounts. They are not. BA each quarter, reduces the deferred anounts by a magical process of stuffing money into them. WE HAVE NO IDEA WHERE THIS MONEY COMES FROM. Most assume it is off the 787 balance sheet. It hasnt been declared to be that way, and in fact very little progress was made on its reduction until after the 787 division was folded back into BCA. This lead to speculation that every BCA program has been paying into the DPA and DTA pools for years. This makes figuring out BAs actual model profit margins and earnings so nontransparent it becomes laughable
“A simple explanation”
Einstein: make your model as simple as possible but not simpler 🙂
programme accounting as practiced by Boeing is obscurity by convolution. ( a one up on the pricipal design of GAAP “how to lie with numbers” )
@Ewe: No need for the snark. Knock it off.
Hamilton
Eviation cost:
The cost per seat figures seem to show that as the VOLUME of the airframe (including fuselage) increases, so does its production cost per m3. I find this surprising because both AB/BA have developed cost reduction technologies (automated fiber placement for composites, welding robot, semi automatic riveting machine for wing/fuselage junction,…). In a way, these figures show that this is still insufficient and that a lot of work remains to be done at AB/BA and is in progress without making this information public, as it is important from a strategic point of view. Unless these global figures are linked to the greater influence of the manufacturing costs of the wing for aerodynamic performance issues.
Concerning ALICE, the composite fuselage of the prototype is manufactured by a renowned French company of prototype racing yachts …. with essentially manual processes. To go into series production, they will have to automate a lot to reduce their production costs per passenger seat, not to mention the batteries issue, or else this will be reserved for a few “happy few ecologists”. The trend resulting from your figures can be used to define a target for this new manufacturer.
There’s a “production hell” awaits patiently the braves.
> not to mention the batteries issue,
Yea, verily..
Composite costs havent come down as expected .
The main advantage with automated fibre placement is the labour costs are reduced but the set up costs are much greater and the waste material is high
The commercial advantage comes from a much reduced weight, which for long range airliners has significant reduction in fuel costs – or the range is increased for the same amount of fuel, which makes more money
For 9 seater planes that fly short distances the weight reduction isnt there as its up against the minimum physical dimensions and the battery weight is taking more than the newer production process’s can save
The business jet makers (Hawker and Lear) had their dreams shattered when going down this path for near similar size planes a decade ago
I share your position for today . But The ” minimum physical dimensions “barriers” may change with for example the introduction of thermoplastic composites ( versus thermoset) used for load bearing structures . They could decrease the “set up costs” in the future due to their large deployment in larger market ( for instance urban air mobility ) than actual regional aircraft ( 9-40 pax) market . The futur will tell us . In ten years from now, ATR figures might be no more a standard for capital costs per seat .
Can a sound business case *really* be made for flying 4-6 people (or likely fewer) 20-40km in a eVTOL craft like those being proposed? It doesn’t pencil out, AFAICS.
“At step 2a, a Miracle appears..”
On the “autonomous” angle for said craft- which seems to be getting soft-pedaled lately- I will remain silent.
And I won’t mention the batteries, either.
“We’ll fly you from Westwood to LAX, no problem! That will be only $20,000 per person, per leg, please.”
diminishing resources-time
> Dukeofurl said on November 12, 2022
2018 was the last year of *profit.*
perhaps your google translator didnt give that correctly ?
Shows that lower profits recently came from program accounting than would be achieved under unit accounting methods
case closed.
Boeing provides both types of accounting numbers ( since around 2012 , so no mystery …check
Program accounting reduces profits for mature programs …check. <
DoU's comments can be a touch difficult to parse, but I think
he's bemoaning the fact that Boeing cannot, under "program accounting", take profits*both* early and late from programs;
a certain "nothing to see here" vibe.
I still think it's super-odd that an entity can take a "profit" when
no profit has been made- but that's just me.
Dukeofurl said on November 12, 2022
>Werent you some sort of financial guru
Your questions are just flim flam to make claims, which you walk away from when the sham is exposed.
But never mind you have no credibility anyway<
I'm not quite sure how one makes "claims" by asking simple questions. As for my being "some sort of financial guru":
can you support that claim?
Patiently awaiting your well-supported replies, I remain,
Bill7
It’s interesting that commenter DoU insults and makes false claims about other commenters here on a regular basis (in almost every post of his, in fact), yet does not get reprimanded for it, let alone ever suspended.
Duke has been suspended in the past.
I’m traveling and will deal with Duke this week.
Hamilton
So, now that the Democrats appear to have retained control of the US Senate, the outlook has gotten a little less rosy for the much-discussed EICAS waiver for the MAX-7/-10.
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/11/12/politics/democrats-keep-senate/index.html
What effect will this have on BA’s NB production rates?
Any guess how it (stock price) opens on Monday??
Does the waiver need senates endorsement or it only requires congress approval?
Every law in the US needs to pass both houses.
New laws needs to pass both houses, But the waiver isnt a law correct? Its a special exception for boeing only? Does it still require both house?
The waiver comes in the form of a law amendment — so it needs approval from both houses.