Leeham News and Analysis

Odds and Ends: MC-21 to be renamed; Boeing buys land; seat wars ahead?

MC-21 to be renamed: After creating a brand for the Russian Irkut MC-21, authorities have decided to rename the airplane the Yak 242, according to this article in Flight International.

The article is too brief to explain the reasons behind this, other than to indicate the MC-21 evolved out of a design that was designated Yak-242. The MC-21 is somewhat larger than the 242 and it is a direct challenger to Airbus and Boeing in the 150-210 seat sector.

Among our activities, we engage in branding. We don’t think this is a particularly smart move on Russia’s part. Returning to the Yak name is a throwback to the old Soviet Union and the history of Soviet airliners that left a lot to be desired. The “Irkut MC-21” name creates some distance to this history in the effort to sell the airplane outside the old Soviet political sphere.

The Sukhoi Superjet SSJ100, which has had some success selling beyond the sphere, nonetheless reinforces the history of troubled Soviet airliners. Production has been painfully slow and in-service reliability difficult.

We think the Irkut name should be retained, a move toward the future, not one toward the past.

Boeing buys more Charleston land: The US government shutdown delayed the land purchased by Boeing of federally property around the Charleston (SC) airport. Now that the government is open again, the purchase has moved forward, according to the Charleston Post and Courier. According to reports, Boeing now owns or has under contract slightly more land at Charleston than it owns at Everett.

Boeing has been shifting work from Washington to Charleston, and the trend toward purchasing land means this will continue. We continue to believe that when clean-sheet airplanes come out of the Boeing shop to replace the 737 and 777, production of these will be at Charleston. Hopefully the demand for the 737 replacement will be high enough that production will be split between Washington and Charleston. We can foresee a scenario where Boeing has a more equal split between the two locations, such as Airbus has with Hamburg and Toulouse.

But the immediate question is whether the 777X derivative will be built in Washington or Charleston. We’ve heard both scenarios but don’t have enough information to know which is correct.

Seats Wars pending? Airbus has called for an industry standard for 18-inch wide seats in coach. Plane Talking has an analysis of this. We’ll point out that Embraer already has 18-inch seats as standard in its E-Jets and Bombardier has 18-inch window-and-aisle seats plus a 19-inch middle seat for its CSeries. This makes the E-Jet and the CSeries the most comfortable domestic airplanes available, with the middle-seat bonus for the CSeries.

We haven’t flown coach internationally for years, but we do so domestically and have been crabbing about the 17 inch seat on the Boeing 737 for a long time. With the Airbus A330 and Boeing 777 nine-abreast essentially the same width, we believe airlines and their drive toward cramming as many seats in as possible to the total disregard of passenger comfort certainly merits international standards at 18 inches.

But we’re not deceived that this proposal is altruistic on the part of Airbus. Boeing’s ability to accommodate one more row of seats with a slightly wider standard than Airbus, reducing CASM in the process, is clearly the motive. When Boeing compares today’s 777 against the A350 in sales campaigns, it uses 10 abreast in coach vs nine abreast for the A350 and argues superior CASM costs. Customers tell us this indeed reduces the CASM advantage the A350 has at an apples-to-apples 9 v 9 (the A350 continues to maintain a trip cost advantage).

We agree with Airbus on the principal. But far chance it will happen.