Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Flydubai orders 737 MAX, in addition to A320neos, at Dubai Air Show
Nov. 19, 2025, © Leeham News: Yesterday flydubai ordered the 150 Airbus A320neo family at the Dubai Air Show. Today, it signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for 75 Boeing 737 MAXes and options for 75 more. Flydubai may switch its orders between the 737-8, -9 or -10. The airline already operates the 737 NG and 737 MAX.
Emirates Airline placed an order for eight more Airbus A350-900s, bringing its total order to 73. The list price is $3.4bn for the new deal, or an average of $422m per aircraft.
Buraq Air of Libya signed an MOU for 10 A320neo family aircraft. It becomes a new Airbus customer.
Silk Way West Airlines of Azerbaijan ordered two A350Fs freighter aircraft. The cargo airline now has a total order to four A350Fs.
From our partner, AIN
AerCap leases 737 MAX to FlySafair
AerCap is leasing three new Boeing 737 Max 8 airliners to African carrier FlySafair. The agreement was announced on Tuesday at the Dubai Airshow, with deliveries expected to start in the first quarter of 2028.
In the third quarter of 2026, South Africa-based FlySafair is due to receive a pair of Boeing 737-800NG aircraft from AerCap. The carrier launched its services in 2014 and operates domestic routes to 10 cities in South Africa, as well as five international routes to neighboring countries.
The full story may be read here.
Comac Makes Dubai Airshow Debut
The Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac) is making its Middle East debut at the Dubai Airshow this week, as the Shanghai-based manufacturer seeks to foster “deeper cooperative relationships with global customers and partners.”
A China Southern Airlines C919 narrowbody airliner features alongside a Comac C909 business jet variant in the static lineup, and a second C919 is performing in the daily flying display.
The full story may be read here.
AIN’s full air show coverage may be read here.
from AW
Scherer Says Airbus Sees Interest ‘Everywhere’ In Stretched A350
“Airbus Commercial CEO Christian Scherer says the company could build a stretched version of the A350-1000 using a more powerful version of the Rolls-Royce Trent XWB-97 engine and is seeing increasing customer demand for such an aircraft.
“Scherer did not say when Airbus might launch the aircraft. “We need to phase it in in terms of deployment of engineering resources. We have the [A350] ULR to finish, we have the freighter, the A220 stretch to do. But we can do it. We are not fundamentally resource constraint,” he says.”
Interesting comment – “the A220 stretch to do”, so that is going to happen, a bit of a slip ?
Might be the higher density version already announced
I suspect it is not the 160 seat high density version – the clue being STRETCH – the high density indicates more seats in the same space.
If Airbus keep selling more and more A321 aircraft, there isn’t really that much pressure on competing against the A320 with an A220-500, it would allow Airbus to build more of what’s selling – A321.
If Airbus can get production costs on the current A220s down, ramp up production and sort out engine issues, an A220-500 is more and more likely IMHO.
Times change ⬇️
https://theaircurrent.com/aircraft-development/a220-500-stretch-short-range-scherer-airbus/
Interesting. Sounds like the A220-500 is taking shape..
So Emirates are buying more A350s- interesting.
This is not surprising. Clark is quoted this week as saying “We love the A350-900 and will be ordering more.”
I don’t think he was talking about the eight, which I believe have already been booked by Airbus as “Undisclosed” on 16th September.
Yep, that’s correct. It was booked in September, as was the recent Etihad A350 order for 3 A350F, and 7 A350-1000’s listed as “undisclosed” in Jan. and Aug. ’25 respectively.
FG:
> Flydubai chief executive Ghaith Al Ghaith says uncertainty over 737 Max 10 delivery schedules was a major factor behind the long-time Boeing operator’s decision to order the Airbus A321neo.
> “The [A321neo] gives us 50 more seats than the largest Max, and two more hours [of range],” says Al Ghaith.
==========
👀 Quietly gaining progress
> Airbus has now registered 85 orders [for its A350F] compared to Boeing, which has more than 50 orders for its next-generation 777-8 freighter.
Both Airbus and flydubai’s press releases are very clear that the MOU is for A321s. flydubai goes further and says that there are also 100 options as well.
Fun fact;
Even with a slew of new A350/330 orders, the 787 has comfortably outsold both of those combined so far this year.
With 320 orders booked so far in 2025, this is one of the most successful years of the program, outpacing every year except the aircraft’s original launch.
https://aerospaceglobalnews.com/news/boeing-787-dreamliner-sales-2025/
787 is like the energizer unfunny, it keeps going and going and going.
Fun fact:
Deferred production costs of the 787 program has increased year over year, almost $3 billion deferred production costs, unamortized tooling, etc not covered by firm orders:
At September 30, 2025 and December 31, 2024, commercial aircraft programs inventory included the following amounts related to the 787 program: deferred production costs of $14,088 and $13,178, supplier advances of $1,100 and $1,379, and unamortized tooling and other non-recurring costs of $1,246 and $1,370.
At September 30, 2025, $12,597 of 787 deferred production costs, unamortized tooling and other non-recurring costs are expected to be recovered from units included in the program accounting quantity that have firm orders, and $2,737 are expected to be recovered from units included in the program accounting quantity that represent expected future orders.
The bunnie that’s digging a deeper and deeper (financial) hole.
PEDRO
With respect to the 787. It sort of doesn’t matter how good the airplane is if you can’t make money on them. There will come day when unit margins turn positive again and they can pay down debt, and thats a gooood goal, but the program will never actually make a penny.
Which company did made more profit:
Boeing selling 1,200 787 or Airbus delivering 7 A330-800?
Boeing made profits on paper through its program accounting, but the program had a couple billion of abnormal production costs and recorded more than $10 billion charges.
https://leehamnews.com/2025/02/04/boeing-deferred-production-costs-39bn-since-2019-max-grounding-22bn-for-737/
Will TC finally have both the A350 stretch and 777-10?
https://aviationweek.com/air-transport/aircraft-propulsion/pressure-mounts-777-9-a350-1000-stretches
> Clark believes a stretched version of the 777-9—unofficially but unsurprisingly dubbed the -10—would only be available at the earliest well into the 2030s. A larger variant of the A350-1000, already in service and production, could debut sooner.
I would like to know realistic 4 class seat counts and empty weights for B777x and A350 79.5m versions.
777 and A350 will both have 4 abreast in front but 777 10 abreast in the back.
“Typical” seatcounts are marketings favourites to suggest favorable capacity & cost per seat numbers.
Air Astana signs up for 50 additional Airbus A320neo family aircraft
They also said they expected most of these to be A321LRs.
Yeah.
For new orders, I’d have thought customers would choose between A321neo and A321XLR, not the A321LR.
May 2024 Aero Telegraph: An Interview with Etihad CEO Antonoaldo Neves
> You have ordered 25 Boeing 777 X.
No, I haven’t.
But the order book of Boeing says so.
The contracts we have were all restructured. So today I don’t have any firm commitment for the 777 X. I have the option to buy those planes, but I also have the option to buy more 787s. We have a great relationship with Boeing. But as for now the 777X doesn’t play any role in our five year plan.
But you will need some ultra long range aircraft, right?
Yes, we need a ultra long range plane. The Airbus A380s and the older Boeing 777 will leave the fleet at some point. We need a replacement for those aircraft. It could be the A350-1000 or it could be the 777 X.
FG: Joby sues Archer over alleged trade secrets theft
AW:
> The airline was supposed to have received its first 777-9 in 2020. Boeing recently pushed first deliveries into 2027 from 2026, making the airline’s planned growth more difficult to achieve. Emirates has reacted by extending 777-300ER leases and retrofitting its in-service fleet with new business-class seats, among other things.
“Boeing is aware of the staggering effect” the delays have had on the airline, Clark said, adding that “*Boeing is accommodating*.” He stressed that Emirates is not buying aircraft “for the sake of offsetting compensation,”…
Pretty obvious, TC sounded like he’s quite pleased/satisfied with such *accommodation/compensation* by BA.
BA stock down like 20% over the past month. Why?? Didn’t BA win major orders? Isn’t the 787 selling great and good progress for the 737 MAX?
> Order MOU by @flydubai is for 150 @Airbus #A321neo firm – “most probably including LRs/XLRs’ CEO Christian Scherer tells me.
https://x.com/SpaethFlies/status/1990691143592640579
Airbus will be able to flip more Boeing-exclusive airlines?
Right, why Airbus is not in a rush to replace their A320neo family aircraft…
I still say Airbus should just re-wing the A32x with their Wing of Tomorrow when it’s finalized. They’d be set in the NB segment for another 30 years (along w/ the A220, of course).
Tells everything you need to know:
NASA, Boeing to modify Starliner contract to reduce number of missions
> NASA and Boeing are modifying the Starliner spacecraft contract to reduce the number of missions from six to four, the latter said in a statement on Monday.
The next Starliner mission would be ”*uncrewed*”, Boeing said.
https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/nasa-boeing-modify-starliner-contract-180626340.html
No mention of aircraft during the call??
China Buys $300 Million in U.S. Soybeans After Trump-Xi Call
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/airbus-finalizes-a350-freighter-prototype-130857475.html
> “What we’ve learned is that it’s quite tricky to certify the derivative of an existing certified platform. … And for that reason we have started about a year earlier compared to what we would have done.” [AB is prepared while the other wishes for the best.]
> Rocker said Airbus has taken a cautious approach on the payload, but is likely to increase the maximum allowable takeoff weight once engineers gather data on how the A350F behaves in real-world operations.
> Between 2019 and 2024, the freighter fleet recorded its strongest period of growth, expanding by 33%. … experts expect a large number of large freighter retirements in the next few years because airlines held onto assets longer than planned during the Covid era, when freight rates soared.
Airbus has a more conservative outlook about air cargo market growth and fleet expansion than rival Boeing. Rival Boeing projects a 67% increase in the global freighter fleet by 2044. Last summer it forecast 2,900 new freighters will enter the market, about 300 more than the Airbus estimate, of which 855 will be large widebody aircraft.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/airbus-finalizes-a350-freighter-prototype-130857475.html