Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Airbus exec outlines goals for Washington State supply chain effort
Washington State suppliers who want to do business with Airbus don’t have to open new shops in Alabama or elsewhere globally to support the European company, its top supply official in the US said last week.
We sat down with David L. Williams, vice president of procurement for Airbus Americas, following presentations of the first Airbus Suppliers Fair in this state, in a conversation in which he outlined Airbus’ goals to increase the State’s supplier business with Airbus. The fair was the culmination of more than three years of efforts by the Pacific Northwest Aerospace Alliance (PNAA), the Washington State Department of Commerce and this writer to arrange a fair.
This is part of a Beyond Boeing aerospace strategy we outlined in October 2009 before the Governor’s Aerospace Summit in Spokane (WA), a plan adopted by Gov. Christine Gregoire and the Commerce Department. Spurred by Boeing’s pending decision to put the second 787 assembly line in South Carolina and a clear strategy by Boeing to compete future airplane programs and supporting work outside Washington, it was obvious the State had to move Beyond Boeing in order to maintain a healthy and growing aerospace industry.
It’s been gratifying to see Commerce, Gregoire and her successor Gov. Jay Inslee ramp up efforts to broaden Washington’s aerospace reliance on Boeing to a more global view.
Washington is Airbus’ No. 2 US supplier by companies count and No. 6 by dollar volume, and it’s within a few hundred thousand dollars of becoming #5. Williams told us that Airbus uses around 25 Tier 1 suppliers in Washington and many more Tier 2 and 3 suppliers.
“Washington State is a huge aerospace hub, so for us as we look at the opportunities, as we look at the suppliers, the technologies of interest and the R&T (research and technology) office, clearly Washington State is going to be one of those strong focuses,” Williams told us. “We’ve come here every year, six or seven times, at the annual PNAA conference. We were at the Aerospace Defense and Suppliers Summit last year and we’re here today.
“I think I’ve been a bit more to Washington State than to any other part of the country.”
Airbus has a goal of doubling its US dollar-based cost structure to mitigate against the Euro-Dollar exchange rate.
“[We] have the plan to increase the spend to $20bn. When I first came here, it was $10bn,” Williams says. The creation of the A320 family final assembly line in Mobile (AL) is part of this plan, but it hardly stops there. And while Mobile will become an aerospace cluster supporting the FAL, suppliers don’t have to locate there.
“There is a need for certain supplier requirements around the FAL…but there isn’t a need for the machine shop to be 50 yards away, there isn’t a need for the composites to be on site. The vision is there will be an aerospace park providing the needs of the final assembly line, and if suppliers are looking to open up a shop in Alabama, it is an option but it certainly isn’t a necessity,” Williams told us. “We wouldn’t expect to, and we’re not telling suppliers, that if you want to do business with Airbus you have to be in Alabama. We’re looking for suppliers in Washington State who can support the business globally.”
What kind of suppliers is Airbus looking for on its sojourn to Washington?
“Areas of interest changes over time,” Williams says. “Areas of opportunities could be a whole new program, it could be a neo program, it could be the end of a contract, it could be the natural end of a contract or it could be brought to a halt because of poor performance. So far we have been focusing on machining very strongly. We can look at composite. We’ve been doing some work around super-plastic forming. More recently we’ve been looking at…aerostructures supplies. Maybe not the huge aerostructures assemblies like Spirit Aerosystems on the A350, but significant aerostructures suppliers who could add value to the supply chain. We looked for commodities.”
Dual sourcing—a topic of some sensitivity to Boeing’s labor unions and to Washington State, who want all the jobs and companies that go with production—is an emerging goal of Airbus.
“As the [production] rates go up, we’ve come to the realization that, No. 1, the single source policy we’ve had maybe needs to be re-thinked, particularly on the single-aisle, obviously. No. 2, the dollarization drive is still huge,” Williams says. “We’ve still got some room to go globally to get to where we want to be. No. 3 is a final assembly line that brings in the opportunity for more local suppliers to support that final assembly line. Why not, if they are going to support rate four into Alabama, or a rate four into China or 10 into Europe? You get your dual sourcing and there is a geographic logic to it as well. You take the risk out of it and you get the dollarization as well. You get the three legs of the strategy.”
Airbus Americas Chairman Allan McArtor raised the prospect of opening an engineering center in Washington State within 10 years. This is good news for Boeing engineers and IT personnel who have been laid off by Boeing as the Chicago-based company moves some of these jobs out of Washington to non-union locations. Airbus has taken advantage of Boeing’s similar actions in Wichita (KS), and has a growing engineer center there. But the bad news is, don’t expect an Airbus engineering center here any time in the immediate future.
“There aren’t any plans I’m aware of to move in sooner than later,” Williams said.
A380 struggles despite Doric order at Paris Air Show
The surprise MOU announced at the Paris Air Show by specialty firm Doric Leasing for 20 Airbus A380s does little to build confidence in the aircraft’s long-term sales prospects.
Doric finances A380s for the airlines already operating them, such as Emirates and Singapore. There are several other special purpose companies that have also financed the behemoth, but no legacy operating lessor has ordered the airplane since International Lease Finance Corp. was a launch customer-and ILFC swapped these in favor of the more marketable A320 family.
The backlog, through June, of firm orders looks like this:
| Emirates | 55 |
| British | 12 |
| Etihad | 10 |
| Hong Kong Airways | 10 |
| Qatar | 10 |
| Qantas | 8 |
| Lufthansa | 7 |
| Asiana | 6 |
| Skymark | 6 |
| Virgin Atlantic | 6 |
| Kingfisher | 5 |
| Singapore | 5 |
| Air France | 4 |
| Korean Air | 4 |
| Transaero | 4 |
| Air Austral | 2 |
| Thai | 2 |
| VIP | 1 |
| 157 |
Source: Airbus, June 30, 2013
Virgin Atlantic continues to push out its A380 order, with entry-into-service now scheduled for 2018, and according to the Bloomberg article even this future date seems iffy.
Kingfisher’s order, of course, is as good as gone. So, probably, is the Hong Kong Airways order unless the Chinese government for some reason steps in and reassigns them to other carriers within China mainland. The government, as Readers will recall, previously curbed HKA’s growth.
One could argue about the quality of a couple of the other customers as well.
Airbus seeks to increase Washington State supply business; aims for 13 A350s/mo
It was the first time that Airbus specifically participated in an event in Washington State exclusively designed to mate the fierce rival to Boeing with suppliers in a meeting intended to increase business opportunities in Boeing’s back yard.
More than three years in the making, Airbus sent top supply chain officials to a suppliers fair organized by the Pacific Northwest Aerospace Alliance and the State Department of Commerce.
Before the event even started, one of the main arterials leading to the meeting was closed during the peak rush hour due to police activity. Wags suggested Boeing arranged the traffic disruption.
In fact, Boeing officials previously have said they support the idea that Washington’s supply chain sell to Airbus and other original equipment manufacturers–though they also admit they like the common suppliers to favor Boeing first. The cross-selling makes from stronger suppliers, Boeing says.
Boeing also had two people at the event listening in.
Here is an article from the Puget Sound Business Journal. We sat down with Airbus’ head of Americas procurement for Airbus and parent EADS for an exclusive interview, and we’ll have this report next week.
But one key piece of information to come out of the meeting that is critical to rival Boeing (as well as the supply chain) is that Airbus plans to produce the A350 at a rate of at least 13 per month. This confirms a long-reported rumor we’ve heard but which Airbus would never acknowledge. The confirmation came from presenter ElectroImpact, which is headquartered in Everett and has a major facility in Broughton, Wales, where it makes wings for the A380 and A350. The A350 facility was built with a capacity for 13 A350s per month.
Airbus has only acknowledged its production plans call for 10 per month within four years of entry-into-service (2H2014). Consideration to creating a second A350-1000 production line is underway and has been publicly promoted by John Leahy, COO Customers. No timeline for the decision has been specifically set, though it may come by year end.
Odds and Ends: Repairing the Ethiopian 787; the ELT theory
Repairing the 787: The prospect of repairing or writing off the 787 has gained fodder almost on the same level as speculation over the cause of the fire. There have been several articles, including this one yesterday in the Puget Sound Business Journal and this one today from a former NTSB member, writing in Forbes.
Throughout development of the 787, Boeing said repairing the composites was not something they were worried about. But most context related to ramp damage or other minor issues. Clearly, though, Boeing being Boeing, we are confident that engineering took a look at major fuselage damage potential.
In the extreme, Boeing can simply replace the entire aft end, which is depicted in this illustration.
Boeing famously replaced the nose section of a TWA 707 in 1969. The nose section of a BOAC 707 was undamaged and later grafted onto TWA 707-331 N776TW, which had been hijacked as flight 840. The nose was blown off in a Jordanian desert. The repaired aircraft flew for 10 years with TWA. The cost to repair was $4m, according to Wikipedia information (about $20m today).
Update, 9am PDT: Jon Proctor, in Reader Comments, says this BOAC angle is incorrect. He supplied the following photos that demonstrate the replacement nose was fresh from Boeing’s factory.
Jon Proctor photo.
Jon Proctor photo.
Qantas is famous for never having a hull loss, repairing damaged aircraft that others might scrap as beyond economical repair. The Airbus A380 involved in the high-profile QF34 engine explosion was out of service for a couple of years and cost something like $180m to fix, but it flies on today.
A Google search of damaged aircraft that have been repaired and returned to service shows a long list of aircraft that suffered what appears to be far greater damage than the Ethiopian aircraft. The difference, of course, is that the other aircraft were metal and this is composite.
The cost will go beyond the fuselage crown and related structure. The interior, with smoke damage, is toast. Who knows at this stage what damage has been done to systems, either from the fire, the fire-fighting or the knock-on effects.
ELT: Yesterday’s news that the Electronic Locator Transmitter is being looked at as a possible cause of the Heathrow Airport 787 fire predictably created a flurry of media activity over the implications of this prospect. The Wall Street Journal broke the news and a media frenzy ensued. WSJ posted an update late yesterday. We accessed through our subscription; Readers may try Google News to see if it is passed the pay-wall today.
The New York Times has this piece on the ELT and the potential role it may have had in the fire, either as a source or a propagator.
Flight Global has a piece that puts some good perspective on this prospect.
Washington on the move for new aerospace business
Washington State is showing signs of some real life in a slow ramp up to gain new aerospace business.
For years, nay, for decades, state politicians took Boeing for granted. Boeing officials complained and complained and complained about the need for better education, for smoother permitting processes, an onerous business climate and more. Officials warned over and over that they might move operations out of the state if things didn’t change.
When Boeing decided to move its corporate headquarters from Seattle to Chicago–with no notice to state officials it was even contemplating a move–politicians were shocked and called it a wake-up call.
Nothing happened. Officials hit the snooze button, turned over and went back to sleep.
Ethiopian 787 fire: the day after
Update, 12n PDT: The British Air Accident Investigation Board has issued its first press release. No apparent connection to the APU or batteries, but otherwise a standard we’re-working-on-it statement.
Unrelated to Ethiopian: Fascinating animations of the Asiana Flt 214 crash.
Original Post:
The origin of the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 787 fire remains unclear the day after the event.
The New York Times has a recap that’s the best we found early Saturday.
As could be expected, we received a lot of media calls asking about the impact to the 787, to Boeing and some even about aviation safety in general.
We urged media to be cautious about drawing conclusions, other than from the photos it certainly doesn’t appear to have any connection to the previous battery fires because of the location of the fire burn-through on the Ethiopian airplane. The batteries are located far away from the burn area.
The possibility of the fire originating in the aft crew rest area was debunked when The Wall Street Journal reported Ethiopian didn’t configure its 787s with a crew rest area in this location.
Other areas quickly circulating: the aft galley, the air conditioning unit (the Financial Times reported a problem with this aircraft’s AC unit, complete with sparks, had been observed eight hours previously), a general electrical system fault, human error of some kind, and more.
It’s all speculation at this stage. And none of it leads anywhere.
Boeing stock was off $8 in the immediate wake of the news and closed down $5. In after-hours trading it was up 3 cents. Wall Street clearly feared another battery fire at first. But as the day went on and initial facts became clear, analysts seemed unfazed.
We urge media to proceed cautiously in its reporting.
This will clearly be a test for Boeing’s Commercial Aviation Services unit, known as CAS. We reported for CNN how CAS prepared to fan out to install the batter fix and to repair the fire-damaged JAL 787. This fire damage is far worse, and it puts to the test not only CAS’s ability to repair this airplane but the entire Boeing claim that a composite fuselage can be repaired from major damage.
Being first is sometimes a bitch.
Boeing has paid dearly for being first with the innovations associated with the 787, both in design and in production. The entire industry will learn these lessons, and Airbus with the A350 isn’t far behind with its composite airplane. Although Airbus has taken a more conservative approach with the A350 in a number of areas, one has to wonder what unknown unknowns will lurk over this airplane.
Some people, including us, have been mildly critical of Boeing for not proceeding with new, composite airplanes to replace the 737 and the 777. Boeing says it wants to “harvest” the technologies of the 787 before taking the next step of all-new airplanes. Perhaps harvesting lessons learned is equally important.
Did Boeing try to do too much too soon with the 787? Perhaps. But this latest incident may be little more than some human-induced fire or something originating with a vendor-supplier component that has nothing to do with the design or the systems of the 787.
Still, it’s Boeing’s name on the side of the airplane and undoubtedly some segment of the flying public will see the headlines and avoid the airplane. The public relations damage is real and, having been in the communications business, we feel for Boeing’s Corp Com department.
Odds and Ends: easyJet’s ‘neutral’ engine; Airbus, Boeing futures in Puget Sound
easyJet’s ‘neutral’ engine: We were amused at the Airbus photo release concerning easyJet firming up its orders for 100 A320neos, announced at the Paris Air Show. In the past, aviation geeks scrutinized the photos to see what engines were depicted to gain a clue if an engine order wasn’t announced with the airframe order. With the easyJet photo release, Airbus entitled it, Airbus “A320neo easyJet Neutral engines.”
.
Airbus in Puget Sound: Next week the Pacific Northwest Aerospace Alliance and the Washington Department of Commerce are hosting the first Airbus suppliers fair here in the State.
- This is something near to our heart. We’ve been working on getting Airbus here for a suppliers fair since 2009 as part of the “Beyond Boeing” strategy we outlined in an October 2009 speech at a conference in Spokane (WA). When we began consulting to the Washington Department of Commerce the following year, Commerce (which previously had expressed interest) also took up the cause. The whole thing fell apart at the height of the vitriolic USAF tanker competition, when the Washington Congressional delegation became so political about the affair. Since then, Commerce and the Pacific Northwest Aerospace Alliance took up the cause and next week is the culmination of this effort. According to the State, 40 percent of the Washington suppliers it surveyed already serve Airbus, and the State is the Number 2 supplier in the US to Airbus by company count. Airbus wants to increase its US dollar-based footprint and is even talking about opening an engineering center in Washington during the next 10 years.
- The Puget Sound Business Journal article linked above has several links within it with more background.
Boeing in Puget Sound: Meantime, the Puget Sound Business Journal has several articles about Boeing’s future here:
The South is Winning: Why Puget Sound keeps losing jobs
The South is Winning: New composites could hasten drift
The south is Winning: Could Washington become a Right-to-Work State?
- In this one, we note that the unions “saved Boeing’s ass” during the 747-8 and 787 debacles but if Washington wants to truly be competitive with the South, it needs to become a right-to-work state. Fat chance.
There is also this editorial comment from The Everett Herald.
Fuel burn A320 v 737
While on our SAS flight from Longyearbyen to Oslo, we browsed the SAS magazine airplane descriptions and it contained fuel burn per seat in litres for each fleet type.
SAS operates the 319/320/321 and 737-600/700/800. Seating is as follows:
A319: 141
737-700: 141
A320: 168
738: 186
SAS reports a mere 0.001 difference in fuel burn per seat per kilometer in litres in favor of Boeing in each case–despite the 738 having 18 more seats, in which case the difference could be expected to be much greater.
We found the data to be quite illuminating.
Fuel burn per seat per km, in litres:
A319: 0.033
737-700: 0.032
A320: 0.029
738: 0.028