A350 First Flight: given the time zone difference between Toulouse and Seattle, our readers are hours ahead of us in following first flight of the Airbus A350. As you could imagine, since it was overnight here, we weren’t up (we may be dedicated, but we’re not that dedicated). First flight is, of course, a milestone in any airplane program, and we certainly got caught up in the excitement when the Boeing 787 finally had its first flight. Bombardier is still holding to its first flight for the CSeries by the end of this month.
With the launch of the 787-10 and the Embraer re-engined E-Jet coming next week at the Paris Air Show and the 777X by the end of this year, probably at the Dubai Air Show, we can’t remember when so many aircraft events like these happened in one year.
Aviation Week has a series of A350 first flight photos.
In other news:
Boeing’s plans for passenger experience: During Boeing’s pre-Paris Air Show briefings, largely embargoed until today, several Boeing executives spent a good deal of time talking about plans for passenger experience in the coming years. We compiled these comments into this story for APEX magazine. Most interesting were the comments that the sharp interior design of the 787, which has been borrowed for the 737 and 747-8, will be obsolete by the time the 777X enters service around 2020 and Boeing plans major upgrades. Keep in mind the 787 will have been in service nine years by then.
Boeing officials also emphasized how planning is emphasizing ways to help its customers capitalize on ancillary revenues. We cover this in the APEX story.
Boeing at Renton: The Seattle Times has a story about the activities at Boeing’s Renton plant. Boeing is preparing to integrate the 737 MAX into the factory, and Dominic Gates has a good story about what’s going on there.
A350 Suppliers in Washington State: KPLU, a public radio station in Seattle, has this report on A350 suppliers in Washington State.
Posted on June 14, 2013 by Scott Hamilton
Isaac Alexander (@jetcitystar on Twitter) provided us with the following so you can follow the latest at next week’s Paris Air Show. He has his own blog with an addiutional list of companies.
From Isaac: Here is a list of micro-news sites for the 2013 Paris Air Show. This will be the 50th edition of the event. If you know of a company or press website that is not listed below, please contact me by Twitter at @JetCityStar, or by email at jetcitystar10@gmail.com. This page will be continually updated during the event.
PRESS
COMPANIES
Posted on June 14, 2013 by Scott Hamilton
A350 Pressures Boeing: With the first flight of the Airbus A350 now scheduled for tomorrow (instead of today), Bloomberg News reports that the pressure is increased on Boeing to go forward with the 777X.
The future of flight: Is this what flying will be like in the future?
Congressional hearing on 787: The FAA says its certification system is good and that the 787 is safe.
“One Boeing:” This means the defense and commercial units working together. Aviation Week has this article; we’ll be talking about this more next week.
Posted on June 13, 2013 by Scott Hamilton
Airline Logos: Mary Kirby posted this one. A bit off our usual beaten path, but we find this quite interesting. Speaking of airline logos:
We just completed a series of flights on US Airways and asked in-flight and ground personnel what they think of the merger with American Airlines. Granted, the sample was miniscule, but each was enthusiastic about the merger.
We also saw, in person, for the first time the new American paint job and tail livery. It doesn’t look any better in person than in pictures. As we’ve written before, US Airways management, which will run the merger company, is likely to hold an employee contest for a combined companies livery. They did this for US Airways, which proved popular for morale (though personally we were lukewarm to the outcome).
Boeing ups 20 year forecast: The 2013-2032 outlook has been released. Numbers are up slightly. Airbus releases its update in September. Interesting point: The 407 seat 777-9X is placed in the 300-400 seat sector by Boeing rather than the Very Large Aircraft (which begins at 401 seats), reports Reuters on Twitter.
A350 Photos: Nothing new in the story but the photos are pretty cool.
Posted on June 11, 2013 by Scott Hamilton
Crowded airplanes: USA Today has an article discussing today’s crowded airplanes. It’s going to get worse. Airbus is offering a configuration for the A380 that has 11 abreast in coach. Boeing says most airlines are now selecting 10 abreast for the 777. Most customers are choosing nine abreast for the 787. Gone are the days when the center seat had good odds of being empty. This is why Bombardier designed its CSeries wit a 19 inch center seat, the widest in the industry.
A350 first flight: Thursday at 10am Toulouse time.
Air France and A350: Several reports indicate Air France will at long last firm up its order for the A350 at the Paris Air Show. It has been held up over maintenance contract issues with Rolls-Royce.
Posted on June 10, 2013 by Scott Hamilton
Lots of news stories as we countdown to first flight of the Airbus A350 and Bombardier CSeries.
Airbus
A350 nears first flight: Wall Street Journal
Taking on Boeing: AFP via Industry Week
A350 flight test detail: Aviation Week
Bombardier
Challenges f0r EIS, Bloomberg News
Posted on June 8, 2013 by Scott Hamilton
Airbus’ chief operating officer-customers, John Leahy, dismisses the idea that Boeing can add more seats to its 737 family to gain competitiveness over the A320 family.
In a press briefing in advance of the air show discussing the 737 MAX (not subject to embargo), a Boeing official revealed that the company is considering changes to the galley/aft lavatory design and the use of slim line seats to add 6-9 seats to the entire 737 NG family. These changes would migrate to the 737 MAX. Airbus previously announced similar changes to the A320, gaining three seats, and more recently to the A321—which also required the addition of exit doors—to boost capacity to 236 passengers in shoe-horn configuration.
But in an interview with Leahy, was skeptical about Boeing’s possibilities.
“That’s more problematic, we’ll see,” he said. “Is this the O’Leary option where they stand at the back of the airplane?” he quipped, referring to Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary, who has proposed a standing seat configuration.
“I’d be very surprised if they did that,” Leahy said, getting back on point. “I don’t know if they could do that (6-9 seats) but remember, we have 236 seats in the A321, so why should I be concerned if they squeeze a few extra seats in? I’d be surprised if they can. I think [the 737-900ER] is at its exit limits right now. It’s also at its performance limits.
Leahy believes that the A320neo will maintain a 60% market share vs the 737 MAX.
“We’re outselling the MAX 2-1 with a 65% market share. We’re not talking about the first couple of hundred airplanes, we’re talking about the first couple of thousand that the neo will have 60% of the market and they’ll have 40%. We’ll give them 40% of the market. It looks right now that the [neo] market will go higher than that but we’ll stay there.”
Posted on June 7, 2013 by Scott Hamilton
Boeing jobs move: We’re not a fan of Loren Thompson, but his commentary in Forbes yesterday is spot on. Boeing is moving jobs out of Washington State to bolster its Charleston (SC) cluster and simply to move to non-union locations.
Washington State needs to come up with some real planning to address the competitiveness in relation to the South. So far, what’s been unveiled is more of the same–there’s no innovation. This isn’t going to work.
JetBlue’s trans-con plan: The US discount carrier said it was contemplating two-class service across the USA. A filing reveals what it was thinking (with a tip to Mary Kirby on this one). What surprises us more than anything is the low density planned in the Airbus A321: just 156 seats. JetBlue’s single-class A320 has 150 seats. Strikes us that JBLU is leaving a lot of potential revenue behind.
Airbus Innovation Days: AirInsight went to the Airbus Innovation Days this week and has a number of postings here.
Here are some more stories coming out of the Airbus days:
Bombardier says CSeries is a “done deal.” Meaning no more delays. This is a pretty bold statement, given the history at Airbus and Boeing. The Reuters story reports the confidence at BBD, but from a pizzazz perspective, it still seems unlikely the CSeries will fly during the show. In the firmest indication yet, it now looks like the first flight will be the last week of June.
11 Abreast on the A380: Not for me.
787-10 Will be marketing “disaster.” So says John Leahy in this article** (all the way at the bottom). That’s not at all what we are hearing from the potential customers we talk to. Lessors and airlines alike look forward to the airplane. Leahy compares the 787-10 with the 767-400, which was a marketing disaster–only two airlines, Delta and Continental–bought the airplane. Both found a workable niche for it, but the 787-10 is no 767-400. With range of 7,000nm, it will have 82% of the mission range of the 8,500nm 787-9, A350 (and A380), it matches the A330-200 HGW, exceeds the 6,000 nm range of the A330-300 HGW and nearly matches the 7,200 nm range of the early 787-8s–with nominally 323 seats, the size of the 777-200ER and the A350-900.
** Readers may have to go to Google News and type in headline “Stretch Version of A380 still far off”
or try this URL directly
Posted on June 7, 2013 by Scott Hamilton
The 69th AGM of IATA just concluded at Cape Town, South Africa, and wide-body aircraft drew a lot of focus in these articles from Bloomberg News and Reuters.
We spoke with John Leahy at the end of the AGM, and though tired and off to sell more airplanes before the Paris Air Show begins June 17, he had some pithy comments about Boeing’s 777X and a strong defense of the A380 sales.
Boeing will have a public briefing of the 777X at the air show, but there have been plenty of leaks before now in which the 777-9X is said to be 20% more fuel efficient than the 777-300ER it’s conceived to replace.
“Be careful with the numbers there,” Leahy said, referring to the 20% figure. “We’re not at all worried about the 777X. They are known for their paper airplanes. No one seems to remember that they already not just marketed but sold 777-200s with folding wings, and of course none was produced. No one seems to remember the ‘game-changing’ Sonic Cruiser, which of course was a joke. No one seems to remember the 747-500, the 747-600 or the 787-3. The Japanese remember the 787-3, which [Boeing] sold with legally binding contracts and just never delivered.
“Yeah, they’re worried about the A350-1000, and they’ve come out with one paper airplane after another and declaring victory, declaring that the world is beating a path to their door. Naw. It’s BS. It’s typical Boeing marketing hype.”
As we remarked to Leahy, “tell us what you really think.”
Leahy repeated previous statements that he could sell a lot more A350-1000s if he had the production slots.
“We could substantially increase sales for the A350-1000 if we could substantially increase production. I need a second line, a dedicated line and we’re debating that internally. We’re doing the business case. I’m confident we can make that decision before the end of the year.”
We asked a leading question about the rate he’d like to see, but Leahy didn’t bite.
“I don’t want to tell Boeing exactly what we are up to.”
We also asked where the additional line would be, if approval is granted: France, Germany or Mobile (AL). “It’s not going to be Mobile,” he said. “Let’s start building CEOs and NEOs there first before we start getting into wide bodies.”
Although there have been a number of stories reporting that Japan Air Lines and All Nippon Airways may buy the A350-1000, breaking Boeing’s decades-long monopoly. It won’t be by Paris, apparently.
“I’d be very surprised, but I can say I’m looking for an improvement in our market share in Japan. We have nowhere to go but up. I would be hopeful we will get a breakthrough in Japan, but I don’t want to predict a timeline,” Leahy said.
A380 sales have been poor, but Leahy is sticking to his prediction of 25 sales this year.
Question: The A380 isn’t selling very well.
Leahy: Excuse me, I haven’t modified my forecast. I said I’ll sell 25 this year, and I’ll sell 25 this year. If this were December, maybe we’d have a discussion. I’ll sell 25 this year.
Q. You fell short last year.
Leahy: “Bad things happen to good people.”
Q. The VLA forecast 1200-1300 since 2000. Sales and delivery rates fell short every year to maintain that pace.
Leahy: “The one thing that doesn’t change is that [everybody] all agree[s] that RPKs double every 15 years. We have to have larger aircraft. Larger aircraft are the only solution [for key airports].”
The Airbus forecasts assumed Boeing would capture a 50% share of the VLA passenger market. In fact, Boeing only has a 10% share. Leahy predicts this split will be maintained.
“We will have 90% market share for VLA. The A380 will do very well and I am confident the book-to-bill will be maintained. No, we’re not going to sell 60-70 aircraft a year. But we will sell 25-35 and we will build 25-35 a year,” he said. “A380 do get high yield passengers.
Note: Because readers won’t behave, comments are closed.
Moving jobs out of Washington: The Seattle Times has a story about last Friday’s announcement that Boeing is moving more engineering jobs out of Washington.
CSeries: Airliners.net had this photo over the weekend. The first flight is expected after the Paris Air Show.
Bombardier CS100 Flight Test Vehicle #1.
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Airbus has powered up the engines on the A350 for the first time. First flight is expected within weeks, likely before the Paris Air Show.
Airbus photo.
Smaller jet demand: The smallest Airbus and Boeing jets have weak demand, reports Aviation Week. And we’re not just talking about the A319 and 737-700/7.
787-9 Assembly begins: It was a busy weekend, with all of the above and capped by the start of 787-9 assembly. The first three 789s will be built on the Surge Line at Everett.
777 Painting: We linked two stories last week, to KING 5 and to The Seattle Times, about the robotic wing painting for the 777 line. Here is a photo:
Boeing photo
Boeing currently is only robotically painting wings going on even-numbered line numbers. Wings going on the odd-numbered lines are still painted by hand for now. Because the program is new, the programmers continue to adjust the software between the even- and odd-numbered line wings, and eventually all the 777 wings will be painted robotically.
The paint shop is big enough to accommodate 777X wings, including the folding wing tips. This, of course, implies the 777X will be assembled in Everett. It’s unclear where the wings will be built.
The robotic painting is part of the 777 Lean manufacturing begun in 2005, which in the entire process has enabled Boeing to boost 777 production to 8.3 a month within the same assembly line space.
While this is the highest twin-aisle rate Boeing has produced to-date, Airbus has been assembling A330s at rate 10/mo for some time and is considering going to rate 11. Boeing, of course, will be at rate 10 for the 787 by year end. Airbus long ago announced plans to go to rate 10 for the A350 four years after EIS, but John Leahy is already pushing for a second assembly line to accommodate A350-1000 demand.
Posted on June 3, 2013 by Scott Hamilton
Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, CSeries
777, 777X, 787-9, A330, A350, Aviation Week, Boeing, Bombardier, CSeries, John Leahy, SPEEA