Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Dubai Air Show: 777X, flight demos.
From our partners at AIN:
Nov. 25, 2025, © Leeham News: LNA’s partner AIN attended the Dubai Air Show and has now posted videos from the event. There are also two unrelated stories about the US Federal Aviation Administration’s efforts to modernize the Air Traffic Control system.
Videos from the Dubai Air Show, and more:
AIN Reporting
Emirates seeks larger A350, 777 after big Dubai order
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By Scott Hamilton
Nov. 24, 2025, © Leeham News: Boeing landed a big order for its 777-9 at the Dubai Air Show last week, valued at $38bn at list prices for 65 airplanes ($575.8m each). Emirates Airline, already Boeing’s largest customer for the airplane, now has 270 777Xs on order. This represents 43% of the firm orders once added to Boeing’s backlog.
Rendering of an Emirates Airline Boeing 777-9. Credit: Boeing.
Emirates simultaneously said it will support a feasibility study to stretch the 777-9 to a larger capacity 777-10. Airline president Tim Clark has been urging Boeing to launch the larger derivative.
Also at the air show, Airbus Commercial airplanes CEO Christian Scherer said Airbus is revisiting a study whether to stretch the A350-1000 (the same size as the Boeing 777-300ER) to a larger “A350-2000” model. This would be the same size as the 777-9.
However, don’t look for Airbus to launch a stretch any time soon, if at all. Airbus previously studied stretching the -1000 and decided the market couldn’t support two airplanes the size of the 777-9. Furthermore, the best target market for these aircraft—the Middle East—already accounts for about 63% of 777X orders before the latest Emirates deal, highly limiting the market potential for an X competitor.
Bjorn’s Corner: Faster aircraft development. Part 17. Critical Design Review, CDR.
By Bjorn Fehrm and Henry Tam
November 21, 2025, ©. Leeham News: We do a series about ideas on how the long development times for large airliners can be shortened. New projects talk about cutting development time and reaching certification and production faster than previous projects.
The series will discuss the typical development cycles for an FAA Part 25 aircraft, called a transport category aircraft, and what different ideas there are to reduce the development times.
We will use the Gantt plan in Figure 1 as a base for our discussions. We are in the Detailed Design phase, and it’s time to conduct the Critical Design Reviews, CDRs.
Figure 1. A generic new Part 25 airliner development plan. Observe the CDRs. Source: Leeham Co. Click to see better.
NTSB issues preliminary report of UPS crash with dramatic moment engine leaves airplane
Nov. 20, 2025, (c) Leeham News: The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) released its preliminary report of the UPS Boeing MD-11F accident of Nov. 4 in Louisville (KY). Included are photos of the dramatic moment the No. 1 engine separated from the airplane, which had just lifted off on take-off.
The report may be downloaded here: Prelimiary Report DCA26MA024 UPS MD11
The state of alternative propulsion aircraft? Part 2.
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By Bjorn Fehrm
November 20, 2025, © Leeham News: In our series about alternative propulsion aircraft, we started last week by discussing what happened after the trigger by the Airbus E-fan flight in 2014 and the introduction of the Tesla Model S car two years before. The alternative propulsion aircraft projects that followed had a rocky path. They followed the Gartner Hype-curve, Figure 1.
There were hundreds of projects announced, more or less serious. A few of these came to producing hardware, and flew test flights, then stopped. Most stayed as PowerPoint presentations and fancy renderings, promising capabilities that were not possible to realize. The result was that we passed the Peak of Inflated Expectations and entered the Trough of Disillusionment. Investors fled to AI, and projects froze or stopped.
Figure 1. The Gartner Hype-curve. Source: Gartner Inc.
By 2025, we are in the Disillusionment phase. As there are signs we can now enter a phase of real, sustainable progress, it’s timely to take stock of where we are and what progress we can expect over the next decade.
To understand why progress has been so difficult, after explaining that learnings from Cars are not transferable last week, we start by focusing on two components that we find in every alternative propulsion concept, the Electric Motor and the Battery system. Of the two components, the motor is the most straightforward to develop and certify for an aircraft. Still, we have only limited progress so far, and we detail why in today’s article.
The Battery System is the most challenging component for alternative propulsion aircraft, both in development and in use. We will spend next week’s article detailing why and how it has slowed down progress so far, and how this can change going forward.
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.
Airbus dominates orders, commitments on Day 2 of Dubai Air Show
Nov. 18, 2025, © Leeham News News: Airbus notched orders on Day 2 of the Dubai Air Show. Boeing announced a small deals today.
The European OEM gained a new customer, flipping from Boeing, with a major deal from flydubai. Flydubai signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for 150 A321neos.
Etihad Airways ordered six A330-900s, becoming a new A330neo customer. The carrier also ordered seven more A350-1000s, bringing its total for the type to 27, and three A350Fs, for a total of 10 aircraft.
Etihad also announced the commitment to lease nine A330-900s from Avolon.
Air Europa signed an MOU with Airbus for up to 40 A350-900s. It becomes a new A350 customer. The airline’s long haul fleet is currently Boeing 787s.
Ethiopian Airlines ordered six more A350-900s.
Boeing dominates Dubai Air Show opening day (Updated with additional news)
By Scott Hamilton
Nov. 17, 2025, © Leeham News: Despite Boeing saying it was going to concentrate on outlining a path for certification of the 777X at the Dubai Air Show, the company dominated the opening day with new orders.
Embraer also announced a few orders at the show.
Airbus was a no-show for commercial deals on opening day.
Emirates Airline announced an order for 65 777-9s, with a list price value of $38bn. It has rights to change the order to the 777-8 or the stretch 777-10, should Boeing decide to proceed with this model. Emirates president Tim Clark has been urging Boeing to stretch the 777 into a larger capacity -10 model. Nominally the -9 seats 465 passengers, which would likely be much lower in Emirates’ premium configuration.
“Emirates’ latest agreement with Boeing also provides strong backing for Boeing’s feasibility study to develop the 777-10, a larger variant of its 777X family,” the airline said in a statement.
After Airbus discontinued the giant A380, Clark has been vocal that a plane larger than the 365-seat A350-1000 or the 465-seat 777-9 is needed. Airbus years ago evaluated stretching the -1000 into a “-2000” to match the size of the 777-9 but decided then the market couldn’t support the airplane.
GE Aerospace supplies the engines for the 777-9. It says there is enough reserve power to accommodate a 777-10. Rolls-Royce powers the A350-1000 with its 97,000 lb thrust Trent XWB 97. It’s unclear if this engine could power a -2000.
Regardless, if Boeing proceeds with a 777-10 and Airbus proceeds with an A350-2000, Boeing will still dominate the Very Large Aircraft sector (+400-seats). The -2000 would be significantly smaller than the 777-10.
Ethiopian Airlines committed to purchase 11 additional 737 MAX jets.
Emirates was expected in some quarters to finally be ready to place an order for the A350-1000.
Embraer’s possibilities with a stretched C-390
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By Scott Hamilton
Nov. 17, 2025, © Leeham News: Sales of Embraer’s E195-E2 have taken off this year after a long period of stagnation.
It also appears that its slow-selling military KC-390 tanker-transport is gaining traction as well.
Embraer’s order book for the C-390 is approaching 50, with several NATO countries recently ordering the aircraft. the C-390. Non-NATO orders are also customers. Embraer is pitching several countries for large orders, according to a May analyst report from JP Morgan. Embraer is also pitching the US Air Force for between 20-30 C-390s, LNA is told. If the Pentagon places an order, Embraer pledges to build a US final assembly line.
Orders and possibilities for Embraer’s C-390. Credit: JP Morgan report, May 2025.
Embraer calls the 390 “a meetable combination and ready for the next 50 years,” Marcio Eduardo Monteiro, Embraer’s vice president of Market Intelligence and chief marketing officer, said during the company’s annual investors day in October.
Dubai Air Show, Day 1: Boeing’s 777X; Anticipated orders
Boeing Insists 777X Widebody Is Worth the Wait
By Charles Alcock • Managing Editor
Charlotte Bailey • Writer
Nov. 16, 2025, © AIN: Twelve years since Boeing launched the 777X program at the 2013 Dubai Airshow, the OEM is back on-site with both its 777-9 test aircraft and a renewed confidence that delays to the protracted certification schedule are finally over.
With Boeing continuing to steadily work through FAA type inspection authorization (TIA) test phases, head of airline marketing for the 777X Justin Hale has a “high confidence” the airplane will enter service by 2027, with certification forthcoming as soon as 2026, he told reporters during a briefing on the eve of the Dubai Airshow on Sunday.
The full story may be found here.