Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Leeham News and Analysis
- Airbus 1Q2025 results: So far, so good, but US tariffs make future results unpredictable May 1, 2025
- Does an Airbus A220-500 need a new wing and engines? May 1, 2025
- Teamsters, Boeing have a new contract April 29, 2025
- Boeing wants to remarket China’s airplanes. It’s costly and time consuming. April 28, 2025
- Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 19. April 25, 2025
PNAA conference, Pt 1: Traffic data; AA-US merger thoughts, 787
Each airline region of the world is different and many going through transitions US went through previously, says Bob McAdoo, the airline analyst for Imperial Capital (a boutique investment banking company in California).
McAdoo is speaking at the Pacific Northwest Aerospace Alliance conference in suburban Seattle today. Highlights:
- IATA traffic data doesn’t make a lot of sense any more. I can always get traffic–all I have to do is charge $19. Without knowing the data behind the numbers, traffic data is meaningless. People say US isn’t a growth market, but it’s making money.
- American Airlines-US Airways: Turn back clock to 2005/6: America West took over US Airways and in less than a year had best profit margins in the industry. Boeing is on AA creditors committee and I think there will be MD-80s coming out sooner and these guys (Doug Parker) will run it like a business. These guys will look at a route structure and say what works and won’t work, not a route planning department that likes the look on a map. I think you will see a lot of markets shut down.
- These guys have been in the top one or two in profit margin. US carries more people out of Philly than AA does out of New to Europe.
- This is a non-growth world in many respects.
- McAdoo recalls when he was at Texas International and his job was to put Southwest out of business. “I wasn’t very good at that.”
- Allegiant and Spirit are, in effect, next Southwest. Tells a story of a friend who rode Spirit once and will never ride them again, “but I’ll buy their stock.”
- 737-400 rent $65,000, 737NG (older) $135,000.
Odds and Ends: ICAO says no to lithium batteries;Dendrites and the 787; Deleting Flightblogger
ICAO says no to lithium-ion batteries: The UN organization ICAO apparently will reverse itself and say that lithium-ion batteries should not be shipped as cargo on passenger airliners. This seems like a prudent move, considering the history of fires involving this battery type, even before the Boeing 787 incidents.
Dendrites and the 787: It sounds like something out of your biology class. Microscopic things called Dendrites might be the root cause of the lithium-ion battery fires on the 787, according to the first reporting from The Wall Street Journal. (Subscription required. Here is a Reuters story on the same topic.)
Deleting Flightblogger: Alas, we deleted Flightblogger from our bookmarks. Jon Ostrower created this blog and built it into a major aviation resource. When he departed Flight International for The Wall Street Journal, Flight half-heartedly (if that) continued the column, but there hasn’t been an entry since August.
Rolls-Royce Certifies Trent XWB: Rolls-Royce received certification for the Trent XWB, which will be used for the Airbus A350.
Airbus still ponders battery future: Airbus is still considering what to do about the plans to use the lithium-ion battery in the A350. A Seattle TV station reported Airbus made the decision to drop these batteries in favor of older, proven technology. Airbus told us this isn’t so (yet). Says a spokesman:
We are following the 787 investigation closely and will evaluate whether any recommendation applies to us.
We have a robust design. If this design has to evolve, we have the time to do that before first delivery.
Nothing prevents us from going back to a classical plan that we have been studying in parallel.
We have all options open, which we keep evaluating in pace with the ongoing investigation.
Analysis of 787 situation ahead of NTSB briefing
Note: The National Transportation Safety Board will brief the media today at 11am ET. We will have a live update on this blog.
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The flurry of news late yesterday for the Boeing 787, its grounding, a ferry flight, potential interim actions and fixes to get the airplane back in the air, and comments from the NTSB chairperson all combine to suggest to us–and to others–that Boeing indeed is making good progress.
Although Deborah Hersman, chair of the federal investigatory agency, said it will be weeks before definitive answers are forthcoming about the cause of the Japan Air Lines battery fire and the ANA battery thermal runaway, this was immediately seen as a positive development. “Weeks” instead of “months” is the key take-away from this.
Hersman went on to say that she would not “categorically” call the lithium ion battery “unsafe,” but that risks posed by the technology had to be properly “mitigated.” This is a very important statement.
Odds and Ends: FAA outsourced to Boeing; responding to fires-land within 15 minutes
Update, 4:15pm: From Twitter–Glenn Farley is the aviation specialist for KING 5 TV, Seattle:
Looks like Boeing test airplane ZA005 is being readied to carry out battery related test flights. Lots of activity
Original Post:
FAA Outsourced to Boeing: The Seattle Times has a story about how the FAA outsourced certification work to Boeing. Coming from The Times’ Washington bureau, the story notes that “few people” realize this happened. For those of us who follow the industry, this is not new. We also wrote about this shortly after the FAA announced a program review. As our post notes, the FAA’s reliance on OEM representatives has been happening since the agency was formed and by its predecessor.
Responding to fires: Airbus, at its annual safety conference in March 2012, noted that fires can get out of control in as little at eight minutes and aircraft may have as little as 15 minutes to make an emergency landing. These conclusions were unrelated to lithium ion batteries, but referenced fires generally. All we can say is, Holy smokes! Airbus Smoke and Fire Analysis
Odds and Ends: Airbus’ frustration over A350 fallout–blame yourself; DC-10 grounding retrospective
Airbus’ frustration: Airbus says it has a Plan B for its lithium ion battery design and the CEO says he’s frustrated over the attention the A350 is getting as a result of the Boeing 787 issues.
Airbus has only itself to blame for any frustration: it’s stonewalling all questions about the design and fire protections of its lithium-ion batteries. The absence of answers from Airbus leads to the conclusions that it doesn’t have fire suppression as it’s commonly thought of.
Boeing remarked after the JAL fire that thermal runaway can’t be suppressed with in-flight fire fighting techniques. The presentation we detailed from Airbus makes it clear Airbus has the same conclusion. Although Halon can be used to suppress small fires, a thermal runaway can only be suppressed by water, and plenty of it. It took firefighters more than an hour to put out the blaze on the JAL airplane, according to the NTSB timeline.
The Airbus slides suggest there is Halon designed into the A350 and we are told the design has venting that the Boeing design does not. But Airbus won’t say what its design is. Does it take the containment approach The Seattle Times wrote about in connection with Cessna? Airbus won’t say. But we know from a well-placed source that venting overboard is part of the Airbus design.
See KING 5’s report below-Boeing is working on its own Plan B.
“We have a robust design,” Reuters quotes Airbus CEO Fabrice Bregier. “I’m not going to give any lessons to Boeing. At the same time, I don’t have to take any either, when I think we have done well and have a plan which allows me to have aircraft flying with batteries that don’t catch fire,” he said, according to Reuters.
We find this second statement to be a load of crap. Where safety begins, rivalry should end. For the good of the industry, Airbus ought to share its thoughts with Boeing. The rivalry perpetrated between the two companies is often childish (both sides are guilty of this) and unworthy of two world-class companies. We find the statement above to be appalling.
Airbus has told us its battery-from a different supplier than that of Boeing’s-meets FAA standards, something that weren’t in place when Boeing selected the lithium-ion batteries in 2007. The FAA issued Special Conditions for Boeing’s use of the new technology batteries.
Aviation writer Christine Negroni has a post that expresses a great deal of frustration with Boeing’s corporate attitude toward the lithium ion issue. Frustration seems to be catching. But Airbus has the opportunity here to take the high road for safety and share its approach with Boeing–and to assure the aviation world publicly that its airplane will be safe.
Bregier says his design is safe and there’s a Plan B if regulators say more is needed. Tell us what is safe about the design and tell us what Plan B is.
Meanwhile, KING 5 (NBC-Seattle) has further information on Boeing’s Plan B, which is to build a containment box around the battery (similar to the Cessna approach).
DC-10 Grounding: The last time the FAA grounded a commercial airliner was in 1979, when American Airlines lost a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10 at Chicago O’Hare International Airport. Aviation Week linked its report at the time and we link this article here.
Space Shuttle: The Seattle Times has a story about the space shuttle Columbia, which broke apart 10 years ago. It’s interesting reading.
Airbus examines lithium battery safety, fire suppression
Note: The NTSB Sunday said it still doesn’t know what caused the lithium ion battery to catch fire on the JAL Boeing 787.
Japan has shifted focus to a monitoring system, not the battery. The battery charger has been cleared by the NTSB.
Japan eased safety standards ahead of service, according to a news report.
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Airbus officials are trying to keep a low profile during the focus on Boeing’s 787 lithium ion battery problems, but since the A350 XWB will also have this battery type, Airbus gets pulled into the story whether it wants to or not.
Airbus officials are concerned whatever the US Federal Aviation Administration decides is ultimately necessary for Boeing to fix the lithium ion problems and restore the 787 to service, it might have a knock-on effect to certifying the A350.
There are several issues: fire prevention; fire suppression; battery safety; risks and so on.
Although Airbus responded to some questions at its annual press conference, and has selectively talked about the Boeing situation since, it’s declined useful comment on some specific questions, notably about fire suppression.
Odds and Ends: NTSB on 787 Certification; SPEEA countdown
NTSB on 787 Certification: There were a number of small but important news items to come out of the press briefing Thursday from the National Transportation Safety Board were several references to examining the certification involving the batteries of the Boeing 787.
The Federal Aviation Administration previously announced a full 787 program review about the design, production and systems.We’ve already opined about whether the FAA, Boeing and the suppliers can objectively review their own work.
Congress has already said it will hold hearings, a move for which we hold general disdain.
In our coverage yesterday, we had this paraphrased statement by the NTSB chairman:
We are looking at certification standards, whether they were adhered to and whether they were appropriate. What we have seen in these two events do not comport with any design to protect against the battery events. Those systems did not work as intended. We need to understand why.
But we welcome the NTSB certification review. The independent NTSB, staffed by professional investigators, is far more able to assess the work of the FAA and Boeing than is Congress.
There have been many articles that suggest the entire 787 process was a “rush.” Certainly the original time frame–four years from launch to supposed EIS–was unrealistic. But with nearly four years of delays, we’d be hard-pressed to say the program was “rushed.”
There are those who say Boeing believes the grounding was unwarranted. Gordon Bethune, a former Boeing executive and former CEO of Continental Airlines, was blunt in his view that the FAA over-reacted.
We disagree.