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
Exclusive Interview: Airbus COO Tom Williams about changing times for Airbus.
By Bjorn Fehrm
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Introduction
13 January 2016, ©. Leeham Co: Airbus COO Tom Williams has a goal of reducing development expenses by 50% and streamlining the production to “best in class.”
Williams is in charge of the areas at Airbus with the greatest headwinds as Airbus goes from a development driven company to a production driven one.
It’s a daunting task to manage development, production and sourcing for a company with a product range where each delivered unit is made up of four million parts. It does not get easier by having to shrink the development activities from 30,000 employees and contractlors to 20,000.
We spoke to Williams about these challenges at the sidelines of Airbus 2016 annual press conference that recapped 2015 orders and deliveries.
Summary:
- Airbus is now changing from a development-driven organisation, constantly creating new products, to a production-oriented organisation.
- The development activities have to be transformed so as to support a company to that does constant improvement and derivatives, not new product lines.
- At the same time, the shareholders are saying it is payoff time. Years of investment shall now be honoured with industry conform return on invested capital. Read more
Airbus annual press conference 2016
By Bjorn Fehrm
Introduction
12 January 2016, ©. Leeham Co: Airbus held its annual press conference in Paris today against a backdrop of record 2015 deliveries. The year that went past was consequently a good one for Airbus. Orders were at a record high for the third year in succession and deliveries exceeded previous years for the 13th year in succession.
But the Airbus sky wasn’t totally cloud free; the large A380 only got sales by having ANA mop up the mess after Japan’s Skymark bankruptcy and production of the new A350 was hindered by a sole source lavatory supplier.
The result was that Airbus missed two 2015 delivery targets, the 15 per year for A350 (delivered 14) and the 2016 delivery of the first A320neo. The latter was because of “paperwork issues” related to certain things being “late to finish” ahead of certification. Read more
Dissection of Boeing’s 2015 order book
Jan. 12, 2016, © Leeham Co. Boeing announced its year-end 2015 orders tally, with 768 net orders and 878 gross orders. It is becoming increasingly clear the 737 MAX is essentially a one-aircraft family.
As expected, 737NG orders are declining, but Boeing won an important order from Delta Air Lines for the 737-900ER. There were no orders for the 737-700 and the 737-800 remains the backbone of the NG family.
There were no orders last year for the 7 MAX. There were four commercial orders for the 9 MAX plus one -9 BBJ. There were 400 orders for the commercial -8 MAX and four -8 BBJs. This means 99% of the MAX sales were for the -8 MAX and just 1% for the -9 MAX (Figure 1).
The -9 MAX nonetheless currently accounts for about 9% of the MAX backlog (Figure 2.)
Pontifications: Deliveries matter, so do orders
By Scott Hamilton
Jan. 11, 2015, © Leeham Co.: Boeing out-delivered Airbus last year by a wide margin. Airbus obtained more orders than Boeing by a wide margin.
Behind our paywall today, we look at some of the reasons for this as we update our annual production forecast. The principal reason Boeing out-delivered Airbus is that production for the 787 is going full blast and production for the A350 is only beginning to ramp up. By 2018, we forecast Airbus will slightly surpass Boeing in production and therefore deliveries.
With Boeing trailing Airbus dramatically for orders this year, an old refrain has resurfaced from years ago when Airbus began outselling Boeing. Phil Condit, then the CEO of Boeing, dismissed the Airbus gains by saying orders don’t matter, only deliveries matter. There have been a few similar statements in recent times.
Bjorn’s Corner: What did we learn in 2015?
By Bjorn Fehrm
08 January 2016, ©. Leeham Co: It’s the first Corner for the year and a look at 2015 as a year of technology advancements is due. 2015 will be remembered as the year when three clean sheet airliners passed important milestones. This will not happen for many years to come, so it will be worth to look at what they brought to world of aviation.
I’m thinking of Bombardier’s (BBD) CSeries getting certification for its first variant; the Mitsubishi MRJ doing its first flight’ and COMAC’s C919 being rolled out. Going forward, we will only have derivatives progressing through such milestones for years except for the roll-out of United Aircraft’s MS-21 single aisle airliner in 2016.
The Airbus A320neo was certified in 2015 and Boeing’s 737 MAX rolled out, but these are derivatives of in-service aircraft.
Embraer’s E-Jet E2 will roll out in February but this is a further development of today’s E-jet and Airbus A350-1000 is a variant of the in-service A350-900.
It will be a long time before we see so much new in a year, so it can be instructive to look at to what extent did these new aircraft bring the state of the art of airliners forward.
Boeing delivers 762 airliners, gets 768 orders in 2015
Jan. 7, 2015: Boeing racked up 762 airliner deliveries last year, a record, while booking 768 orders–a book:bill of fractionally over 1:1.
Boeing throughout the year had largely guided a book:bill of slightly better or slightly lower than one.
The company delivered 495 737s, an equivalent rate of 41.25/mo. There were 18 747-8 deliveries, matching the monthly production rate of 1.5/mo. There were 16 767-300ERs delivered, matching the production rate, and 98 777s, slightly fewer than the equivalent 99.6 annual production rate.
How good is a used 767-300ER? Part 4
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By Bjorn Fehrm
Introduction
Jan. 6 2016, ©. Leeham Co: We now finish our series of acquiring a used Boeing 767 aircraft to upgrade a Boeing 757-based long haul service. The 767 went out of favor recently as it has higher fuel consumption per seat than competing aircraft like Airbus A330-200.
With today’s low fuel prices and favorable used prices, a well kept 767-300ER is once again an interesting long haul aircraft. In previous articles, we looked at different aspects of the 767-300ER compared with the A330-200. First we compared the aircraft’s characteristics (Part one), then Cash Operating Costs (Part two) and finally Direct Operating Costs (Part three).
We now finish the series with a revenue and margin analysis. First we establish the competitor’s payload carrying capabilities over a trans-Atlantic network. Then we calculate their revenue capabilities using standard yields (revenue per load unit). The revenue and cost data then gives us the operating margins for the aircraft.
Summary
- The 757 has the lowest costs but is considerably more limited in its payload and range capability than the 767 and A330. Its lack in capacity is augmented by a lack of cargo handling facilities.
- The 767 has a cargo handling concept, unfortunately with the wrong container standard, LD2. The alternative is pallet based freight, which works well for the 767.
- The A330-200 has the best passenger and cargo transporting capability. This compensates for its higher Direct Operating Costs but the low fuel prices keeps the 767 in the hunt.
Pontifications: Looking ahead to 2016
Jan. 4, 2016, © Leeham Co. Let’s take a walk through our outlook for 2016.
Boeing is 100
The Boeing Co. is 100 years old this year. July 15, to be precise. This is the last day of the industrial portion of the Farnborough Air Show.
There will no doubt be all kinds of celebrations at the Air Show. To the extent possible, I would imagine Boeing will try to have a whole lot of orders to announce there. There will be all kinds of run-up to the 100th anniversary. Few throw a party as well as Boeing. (Just don’t sing “Happy Birthday;” I never have liked this song.)
It’s a great achievement and we should all celebrate with Boeing for the next seven months.
LNC’s annual production forecast for Airbus, Boeing
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Introduction
In our annual production rate forecast for the Big Two OEMs, we combine announced production rate plans, Market Intelligence indicators—largely from the supply chains that serve the Big Two—and our own analysis of where we believe rates should be based on backlog, market
conditions and ramp-up of the 777X and A350 production.
Our forecasts may well run contrary to what the Big Two will say publicly, and even privately, but our assessment is what it is.
Summary
Read more
2 Comments
Posted on January 11, 2016 by Scott Hamilton
Airbus, Boeing, Leeham News and Comment, Premium
737 MAX, 747-8, 767, 777, 787, A320, A330, A350, A380, Airbus, Airbus and Boeing production forecast, Boeing, Leeham Co.