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By Bjorn Fehrm
March 28, 2024, © Leeham News: We are doing an article series about what drove the cross-over from Airbus A319 to A320 and then to A321. We analyzed the change from A319/A320ceo to neo last week and discussed why the neo shift for the A319 meant if stopped selling.
Now, we study the change from A321ceo to A321neo and what caused the acceleration of growth of A321 sales and deliveries as it was upgraded to neo.
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By Bjorn Fehrm
March 21, 2024, © Leeham News: We are doing an article series about what drove the cross-over from Airbus A319 to A320 and then to A321. We started with the ceo range last week. We could see why the A320 was a better choice than an A319, with only a few more passengers per departure required to close the operating cost difference for a route, whereas the A321, being a larger jump in capacity, did not have the same per seat mile economics until traffic increased substantially.
Now we study the change to the neo generation and try to understand why the A319, a popular model as a ceo variant, did not sell at all as a neo.
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By Bjorn Fehrm
March 7, 2024, © Leeham News: Over the last decades, the choice of domestic market airliners has gone from the typical 120-seater to today 200 seats or more. We will look into what drives these decisions and where the cross-over points are from, say, an Airbus A319 to A320 and then to A321. We will limit the investigation to the Airbus range as the Boeing 737 MAX range has still not their MAX 7 and MAX 10 in service.
We will use our Airliner Performance and Cost Model (APCM) to model typical sectors and investigate what load factors favor a switch.
March 1, 2024, ©. Leeham News: We are discussing the Operational phase of a new airliner family. For the operational phase, the airplane must pass scrutiny for Continued Airworthiness. The biggest item in a regulator’s Instructions for Continued Airworthiness is the required Maintenance program to keep an airliner airworthy. We discussed the modern MSG-3 maintenance program for an airliner last week, why it was created, and its main analysis principles.
Now we look at maintenance data designed to the MSG-3 standard, the Maintenance Planning Document (MPD) for the Airbus A318/A319/A320/A321.
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By Tom Batchelor
February 22, 2024, © Leeham News: The sustainability challenge is redefining the aerospace industry in all sorts of ways.
For Airbus, which spent €3.2bn on research and development last year, that comes in the form of clean-sheet designs for hydrogen-powered aircraft that promise to reduce in-flight carbon emissions to zero. The European planemaker’s ambition is to bring to market the world’s first such commercial aircraft by 2035.
But Airbus is also working on a successor to the A320 family, referred to as the “next-generation single-aisle” aircraft. At the company’s full-year briefing on February 15, more details were revealed about the aircraft, including confirmation that it would run entirely on Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF).
“We’re working on technology to develop the next short-to-medium range aircraft before the end of the next decade, which will be capable of flying up to 100% SAF,” Julie Kitcher, Airbus’ chief sustainability officer, told LNA in Toulouse. “It will be much more fuel efficient, but also feature a new wing design and new materials; we’re working on a lifecycle approach to this aircraft.” Read more
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By Judson Rollins
Feb. 19, 2023, © Leeham News: After last week’s release of Airbus’s 2023 financial results, we undertake our annual analysis of at-risk deals on the OEM’s books.
Airbus has outstanding orders from airlines where there is a material probability that some won’t translate into deliveries. Most resulted from airlines with financial difficulties, but some were related to contractual disputes. When deliveries are delayed beyond a set period, usually 12 months, the customer can cancel orders if the delays are unexcused. Boeing flags such orders as subject to an ASC 606 accounting rule adjustment.
Unlike Boeing, Airbus isn’t subject to the ASC 606 accounting standard, so it only discloses the nominal value of its total adjusted order book in its annual report – but not at-risk orders by program.
LNA analyzed Airbus’s order books in July 2020, November 2020, August 2021, February 2022, August 2022, and December 2022 to identify at-risk orders and develop an apples-to-apples comparison. The above links explain our methodology.
By Tom Batchelor
February 15, 2024, © Leeham News: Airbus gave more details of its planned ramp-up today as it announced 2023 full-year results, with revenues climbing 11% year-on-year to €65bn and adjusted earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) up 4% to €5.8bn.
The European manufacturer is targeting 800 commercial aircraft deliveries in 2024, above the 735 delivered last year, an increase of almost 9%. Airbus is seeking a ramp-up in production to meet increased output targets across its commercial division, including 75/mo for the global A320 family program.
Guillaume Faury, Airbus chief executive officer, told investors that the company was seeking to strike a balance between “very strong demand” for its aircraft and “the ability of the supply chain to meet the demand.”
Faury said 2023 had been a “landmark year” with a “record-breaking level of aircraft orders and backlog”. He added: “We continue to see momentum for civil and defense markets.”
However, the Airbus Defense and Space division continues to struggle with adjusted EBIT down 40% year-on-year, to €229m from €384m.
Across all of its business segments, Airbus said it expects to achieve EBIT Adjusted of between €6.5bn and €7bn in 2024. Read more
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By the Leeham News Team
Analysis
Feb. 12, 2024, © Leeham News: United Airlines has reportedly been looking to Airbus to replace the Boeing 737 Max 10s that Boeing is having difficulty delivering, due to the Alaska Airlines accident and the resulting delays in certification to the Max 7, Max 10 & 777X programs. Airbus has been searching for ways to recover/create slots to take on a premium customer and poach them from Boeing.
A320 production rates are headed towards 75 a month in the 2025/2026 time frame, with Airbus confident that its supply chain can meet the demand and will commit to the rate for the long term. These are record production numbers with the previous high-water mark reached in 2019 with 863 total deliveries: 642 of those from the A320neo family, or 54 a month. The A220 program is also headed for an increased production rate of 14 a month at about the same time.
However, Airbus has its own kinks to work out, along with concerns outside its control:
There has been speculation and calls for Airbus to push the envelope even more, reaching 90 a month to offset the Boeing shortcomings.
75 & 14 a month are already huge goals and pushing suppliers to go past those targets might compromise quality. People will cut corners when they are greedy. Besides, a little scarcity when you are the top dog isn’t the worst thing; Boeing isn’t coming to the party with anything new in the near future.