Leeham News and Analysis
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Leeham News and Analysis
- Engine makers tout “Plan A” but have “Plan B” backups in R&D June 23, 2025
- Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 27. June 20, 2025
- Pontifications: A Personal Note June 19, 2025
- Airbus books 142 firm orders as Boeing retracts from the Paris Air Show June 19, 2025
- AIN Media Group Agrees to Acquire Leeham News & Analysis June 17, 2025
UTAS sees increasing electronic architecture in future airplanes
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Introduction
June 9, 2016, © Leeham Co.: The debate continues whether the next new, clean-sheet airplane will be a Middle of the Market aircraft (MOMA) or replacements for the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 families.
Along with he studies of new airplanes are those undertaken by suppliers. Electric Systems, a unit of United Technologies Aerosystems (UTAS), is working with the OEMs to determine what level of electric systems will be used in the new aircraft, whatever is selected to go next.
Summary
- Electric systems on the Boeing 787 are up to 80% more efficient than those on the Boeing 777 Classic.
- The 777X retains the Classic systems or commonality.
- Benefits decline the shorter the flight.
Irkut MC-21 rolls out
June 9, 2016: Irkut rolled out its challenger to the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737-800/8
MC -21 rollout. Photo: AIN Online via Google images.
yesterday the MC-21-300.
The new airplane is powered by either the Pratt & Whitney GTF or a Russian engine. A report from a Russian-sponsored media site is here.
LNC previously published an analysis of the economics of the MC-21 behind our paywall. We’ve opened up the first of four parts to all readers here.
UTC media day 2: GTF hits 99.5% dispatch reliability rates
June 7, 2016: The new Pratt & Whitney Geared Turbo Fan, on seven Airbus A320neos,
Bob Leduc, president of Pratt & Whitney.
have achieved more than 2,000 revenue cycles with no returns or rejected take-offs, says Bob Leduc, president of Pratt & Whitney. The engines have a 99.5% dispatch reliability. The last time this level was achieved was with the introduction of the Boeing 777, which at the same point had a 100% dispatch reliability rate.
UTC media day 2: PW addresses Under-Performing supply chain
Day 2 of the United Technologies Corp (UTC) Media Days is focused on Pratt & Whitney.
June 7, 2016: Pratt & Whitney officials today clarified an eye-popping statement yesterday by Greg Hayes, CEO of parent United Technologies, that 44% of the suppliers on the new Geared Turbo Fan engine were performing to goals.
Wells Fargo sees reasonable, risky production rates
June 7, 2016: Single-aisle production rates of 57/mo at Boeing and 60/mo at Airbus are
reasonable when achieved in the near term but more problematic in 2019. Wide-body production rate hikes are risky.
This is the conclusion of a short research note issued June 1 by Wells Fargo Securities.
“Higher Rates Sustainable,” WFS writes. “Aircraft deliveries have historically been cyclical, yet Boeing and Airbus have had flat-to-rising deliveries for 12 years–and both forecast higher near-term deliveries. The bottom line is that the OEMs’ forecasts can be reasonable in our view, assuming aircraft retirement levels and/or traffic growth are above historical rates. Therefore, we expect higher deliveries over the next several years, but think it is unlikely that the full 35-40% A320/737 production increase currently envisioned by the OEMs will be achieved by 2020.”
UTC media day 1: UTAS, twice the size of any other aerospace systems company
Note: United Technologies Corp (UTC) is holding its annual Media Days today and tomorrow. We’re providing reporting from the event. This is the first time in our long participation that UTC Aerospace Systems is presenting. UTAS is a major supplier and service provider to all the airframe OEMs.
June 6, 2016: UTC Aerospace Systems is just four years old, following mergers with
Dave Gitlin, CEO of UTC Aerospace Systems (UTAS).
Hamilton Sundstrand and Goodrich–the largest in aerospace history, says Dave Gitlin, president of UTC Aerospace Systems.
UTAS provides electrical power and bleed air systems, engine, starters, power systems, all the circulating fans on the Boeing 787, monitoring systems and much more. Evacuation slides, the Ram Air Turbines, landing gear, flaps and slat control systems, brakes and thrust reversers.
Pontifications: The Bottom Line isn’t always about The Bottom Line
By Scott Hamilton
June 6, 2016, © Leeham Co.: Sweetheart deals to win strategic aircraft orders are nothing new in commercial aviation.
John Leahy, COO-Customers for Airbus, last week poked Bombardier for its order from Delta Air Lines. Citing a reported airplane sales price of $22m, which Leahy estimated cost BBD $7m per airplane, Airbus’ chief salesman—known for his barbs and quips—said if BBD sold more C Series faster, the company would go out of business quicker.
Set aside for the moment the numbers he cited as unknown quantities. LNC has different figures we’ve reported and in two posts on my column at Forbes, here and here, there are other aspects to the Delta deal that affect economics.
It’s undisputed that BBD took a US$500m charge against the Delta, Air Canada and AirBaltic deals. The second Forbes post explains why. It’s all about the learning curve. Airbus and Boeing know about this: the first A350s are being chalked up to big losses and the 787 has $29bn in production costs. But it’s not to their benefit to acknowledge this when criticizing the C Series deals.
All this is neither here nor there, however. Airbus, Boeing and McDonnell Douglas all have (had) done deals that don’t seem to make commercial sense when key, strategic transactions were necessary.
Airbus stepping up innovation
By Bjorn Fehrm
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Introduction
June 6, 2016, ©. Leeham Co: In January last year I had a discussion with Airbus CEO Fabrice Bregier regarding the innovation level at Airbus. The background to the discussion was that Airbus was trailing its direct competitor, Boeing Commercial Airplanes, in innovations since the early 2000s.
Airbus started life as a more innovative company than Boeing. It was using new technology in an aggressive way to gain product advantages on the incumbent Boeing. Examples are the universal use of Fly-By-Wire (FBW) and the standardization on a common cockpit layout for all its aircraft, whether single or dual aisle, Figure 1.
Figure 1, Airbus A320 cockpit laying the ground for a common cockpit standard. Source: Wikipedia.
The FBW and common cockpit enabled customer pilots to cover a wider range of aircraft with minimal training. Airbus also led the aerodynamic development with high aspect ratio wings for its A320 and A330/340 series aircraft.
Somewhere during the problems with the A380, the creative and innovative spirit got caught in the aim to unify the group, to make sure that the “I make it my way” initiatives stopped in the different national industries that made up Airbus.
Airbus changing production to be more competitive
By Bjorn Fehrm
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Introduction
June 1, 2016, ©. Leeham Co: With the large aircraft development programs being on the way to fade out and give way to incremental improvement programs, Airbus is shifting its focus onto making its production more competitive.
The revenue and profitability of Airbus commercial aircraft depends on up to 90% on delivered airliners. With the pricing determined by the market, the production costs are virtually determining Airbus’ bottom line.
Figure 1. The forward part of an A350 loaded into Station 50 in the Final Assembly line. Source: Airbus.
The classical Airbus production system was designed to satisfy industrial-political rather rational production criteria, with each participating national aeronautical industry vigorously carving out its piece of the production pie. The result was a production system that had non-optimal efficiencies.
With the coming 5-10 years being a period of incremental development amid a further ramp up of production, the time has now come to focus the Airbus production system and to change this to an efficient and streamlined operation.
Airbus aircraft programs in review
By Bjorn Fehrm in Hamburg
Introduction
May 31, 2016, ©. Leeham Co: Airbus went through a complete review of all their aircraft programs as part of their yearly briefing for media in Hamburg today. A lot was said regarding the status for the different programs by Airbus CEO Farbice Bregier, its COO customers John Leahy and Executive VP Strategy and Marketing Kiran Rao.
Figure 1. Most recent A350 delivery was to Cathay Pacific. source: Airbus.
The briefing was given against a backdrop of weak orders and deliveries for the first five months of the year. Both Bregier and Leahy said, “This is to be expected, it’s not sustainable that we have Book-to-Bill ratios (orders vs. deliveries) of over 1.5 or even close to two for many consecutive years. We have a backlog of 6,700 aircraft that customers expect us to deliver and they have little appetite to order new aircraft when they can earliest get them by 2021 at the earliest.
“We are now in a period of focus on deliveries and we can expect and be happy with a book to bill ratio of around one for the coming years. The extraordinary backlog also justifies our decision to increase production to 60 units per month for our A320 single aisle program.”
Here follows what was said for each of the programs.