Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
“7M7” MOM means opportunities all around US
The prospect that Boeing may launch the so-called Middle of the Market (MOM) airplane seems to be gaining ground.
We’ve reported previously that our Market Intelligence suggests the MOM would be launched in 2017 or 2018 with an entry into service seven years later.
In an interview with Air Lease Corp president John Plueger, he outlined why Boeing has to proceed with the MOM–the response to the 737-9 MAX has been disappointing. We also reported in our interview with Airbus CEO Fabrice Bregier he doesn’t believe a MOM is needed, that the A321neo and A321LR fill the bill. Clearly he is looking at this from a different perspective than from Boeing’s current dilemma.
On the eve of the Paris Air Show, Jon Ostrower of The Wall Street Journal reported that Boeing sees a demand for MOM.
The prospect of a launch of what we’ll for now call the “7M7” (for MOM, obviously), presents opportunities all around the US. And potential anguish for Washington State and Boeing’s local unions.
Bjorn’s Corner: Hot competition in Middle east.
By Bjorn Fehrm
- Boeing needs hundreds of 777 orders to bridge the production gap is now open to all Readers.
By Bjorn Fehrm
Introduction
12 June 2015, C. Leeham Co: Earlier in the week we had an interesting interview with Sir Tim Clark, , president and COO of Emirates Airline. We discussed Emirates’ requirement for a twin aisle medium/long range complement to their Airbus A380 and Boeing 777 fleets. The competition is between Boeing’s 787-10 and Airbus’ A350-900. So far the assumptions have been that the 787-10 will be hard to beat on pure costs per seat for mid-range requirements in the 300-seat segment.
The 787-10 seats 323 passengers in Boeing’s old-fashioned IAC three class seating and 331 in our more modern, normalized two class seating with 60 inch angled lie flat in Business and 32 inch economy section. The A350-900 has so far seated 313 seats in the same normalized seating standard. Recent cabin changes by Airbus can now increase that to close to 330 seats. The configuration changes were originally conceived for A350-1000 but we believe Airbus will offer these to Emirates and they will make it into the -900 catalog.
The 787-10 is lighter and would therefore be more effective on fuel but the difference is small, given the A350-900’s more modern engines. So the overall discussion was that 787-10 had found its ideal customer, in need of many seats, a solid mid-range performance and lowest cost. That was until Monday’s interview with Clark.
A380 cost improvements limited to seating, for now: Bregier
- MOM airplane doesn’t make sense.
- A new MOM should have new technology and it’s not available until 2030.
June 9, 2015, c. Leeham Co. Cost improvements for the A380 will be limited for now to
Fabrice Bregier, CEO of Airbus. Image from The Telegraphy via Google images.
increasing seating capacity, the president and chief executive office of Airbus told Leeham News and Comment in an interview today.
Aside from taking weight out of the airplane, which is already being done, Fabrice Bregier said Performance Improvement Packages (PIPs), such as aerodynamic improvements and adjustments to the wingtips, would wait until–or if–Airbus re-engines the airplane. And Bregier said Airbus is in no hurry to make a decision about this, despite pressure from the largest A380 customer, Emirates Airline, to launch the neo.
We want engine choice, say airlines at IATA
Willie Walsh, CEO of British Airways, says sole-sourcing the engine on the 747-8 cost Boeing an order. BA bought the Airbus A380 instead. Photo source: SI.WSJ.net via Google images.
June 9, 2015, c. Leeham Co. Airlines want engine choices, not sole-source on airplanes, airlines said at the International Air Transport Assn. (IATA) Annual General Meeting in Miami Beach (FL).
Sole-sourcing cost Boeing a major order for the slow-selling 747-8, said Willie Walsh, CEO of British Airways. Relations at the time between British and GE Aviation, the sole engine provider on the 747-8, were so poor BA decided instead to order the Airbus A380, where a choice between the Engine Alliance GP7200 and the Rolls-Royce Trent 900 was possible GE is a JV partner in Engine Alliance with Pratt & Whitney. BA bought Rolls.
MOM market depends on price, says Air Lease Corp
June 9, 2015, c. Leeham Co. The Middle of the Market (MOM) airplane seems next up on the development plate. Air Lease Corp (ALC) is a major player in the development of any new airplane, and president John Plueger said the size of the market will depend greatly on the price of the airplane.
During a short interview on the sidelines of the conference, Plueger didn’t name a price but said the more expensive the airplane, the market could be as few as 800. The less expensive, the market could be as much as 1,200-1,600 airplanes. Either market isn’t big enough for Airbus and Boeing to play in this space, but Boeing–lagging in the single-aisle sector with the 737 MAX 9 to the Airbus A321neo–has to do something, Plueger said.
Emirates A350/787 bake-off remains wide open
Tim Clark, president of Emirates Airline. Photo: Skift.com via Google images.
June 9, 2015, c. Leeham Co. Competition between Airbus and Boeing remains wide open between the A350-900 and the 787-10, says the president of Emirates Airline despite an Internet report that the carrier has tilted toward Boeing.
“No, I don’t know where that’s coming from,” Clark today told Leeham News and Comment on the sidelines of the International Air Transport Assn. Annual General Meeting in Miami Beach. “If anything, the 10 is not coming up with the thrust requirements that we need. We’re working with Boeing on that, whereas the A350-900 has got bags of thrust.
Bombardier ‘transformation initiative’ goes after costs across the enterprise, supply chain
June 8, 2015, c. Leeham Co. Bombardier suppliers, already squeezed by Airbus and Boeing to cut costs and prices,
Alain Bellemare, CEO of Bombardier.
will soon face a new effort from Bombardier to do the same.
The new chief executive officer, Alain Bellemare, last week announced a “transformation initiative,” of which going to the supply chain is but one part for cut costs across the enterprise.
Bellemare, who was named CEO in February, knows something about cost cutting. He was an executive at Pratt & Whitney, a unit of United Technologies, before coming to BBD, and has been on the giving and receiving end of demands to cut costs.
Bellemare was named with the charge to restructure Bombardier, after billions of dollars in losses, cost over-runs and delays in corporate and commercial aircraft programs, the highest profile of which is the CSeries. The CSeries is the bet-the-company leap into mainline jet aircraft which, at the lower end, compete directly with Airbus and Boeing.
In an interview with Bellemare at the International Air Transport Assn. Annual General Meeting Monday in Miami, Bellemare covered a wide range of subject about how BBD will be remade.
A350 replacing A340-300 / 777-200ER, still on with lower fuel prices?
By Bjorn Fehrm
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Introduction
June 7, 2015, c. Leeham Co. We have just rounded off a series of articles around how A350 is to fly, its systems approach and lastly the conversion of Finnair’s A340/A330 pilots to A350. Finnair will replace the airlines A340-300 with the A350-900.
A question that comes up is how much more efficient is the A350 that is delivered to these airlines, and does the investment still make sense with today’s lower fuel prices? To get an answer we took the two customers that will get their A350 within the next months, Vietnam Airlines and Finnair, and we compared A350-900 to the aircraft that it will replace in their fleets, Boeing 777-200ER for Vietnam Air and Airbus A340-300 for Finnair.
We used our proprietary model to fly these aircraft over some typical routes for the airline’s, for Vietnam Airlines Saigon-London and for Finnair Helsinki-Shanghai.
Summary:
- The present aircraft are over 20% less efficient than A350 on these routes.
- For the A340 it is the engines which are the culprit, for the 777-200ER the wing.
- With a realistic fuel price for the planning period the differences in efficiency are large enough to motivate the switch.
Bjorn’s corner: Conversion to A350, we talk to Finnair.
By Bjorn Fehrm.
Introduction
June 4, 2015, c. Leeham Co. In our article series around A350 we now finish by covering how an airline prepares its pilots for flying A350. Here we were given the possibility to interview Finnair’s Flight Safety Manager Tapani Toppari on how Finnair will use Airbus training to convert their A330/340 pilots to include A350 in their type ratings.
Christian Norden, Airbus Director for A350 Flight Training, also furnished us with more information on how Airbus has improved their training philosophy for A350 training. This new training concept, called Evidence Based Training, has been developed by Airbus and other OEMs in cooperation with ICAO to counteract the tendency revealed by recent accidents that pilots had lost their manual flying skills and had deficiencies in their capability to solve unexpected problems.
A changing Airbus
By Bjorn Fehrm
Subscription required
Introduction
June 3, 2015, c. Leeham Co. Airbus, the commercial aircraft part of Airbus group, is in a change period which in terms of its results will be as profound as the many restructuring programs “Power 8”, “Power 8 plus” and “Future EADS” were in unifying and restructuring Airbus after the A380 problems.
The change is taking place in a very different environment. Airbus and Airbus group are no longer plagued by national infighting and severe duplication of resources, the drivers for the previous programs. Rather it is a necessary change for a company that goes from focusing on getting large new aircraft developments out the door and expand market share, to a company which needs to focus productivity and how to avoid complacency.