Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Leeham News and Analysis
- Five for Five: Air India crash points to systemic problems at Boeing that CEO Ortberg must fix June 15, 2025
- Airbus sees Boeing as medium-term competitor, with Comac next June 14, 2025
- Boeing bullish on 20-year forecast, despite short-term headwinds June 14, 2025
- Embraer’s 20-year market forecast under 150 seats: fewer turboprops, jets about the same June 14, 2025
- Airbus Canada CEO: Airbus is here to stay in Canada June 14, 2025
Boeing’s next five weeks
The next five weeks should be pretty exciting for Boeing–and significant.
Last week, the company received certification of the 747-8F from the FAA.
Before the end of the month, the Board of Directors is to receive from Boeing Commercial Aircraft the details of the 737 re-engine program (we sure hope marketing comes up with something better than “NE737”)**; we actually have learned the date of the BOD meeting, but will honor Boeing’s policy of not revealing the date). At this meeting, Authority to Offer the 737RE is expected, with details of just what the airplane is to follow to customers and the public (not sure of the timing).
At that point, we’ll be able to see just how well the 737RE stacks up against the A320neo and how creative Boeing’s engineers have been in taking a 1960s-generation airframe and bringing it forward to the 21st Century.
Name that plane-the 737 re-engine
With Steve Wilhelm of the Puget Sound Business Journal getting a scoop that Boeing is naming the re-engined 737 the NE737, which we were underwhelmed by, and the conversation in the Internet and analyst community about the name, we thought we’d run a Name that Plane contest. It worked for the 7E7; why not for the 737 re-engine?
Even though this is a “contest,” there is no prize.
Here’s what’s out there so far:
Talk of 60 737s a month unjustified, says analyst
Note: According to the Puget Sound Business Journal, the new name for the 737RE is the NE737 (presumably for NewEngine). Dunno about you, but we are underwhelmed.
Note 2: On another topic, Boeing got certification of the 747-8. Delivery is expected next month.
Here is a piece we did this week for Commercial Aviation Online:
| Date: | 18/08/2011 10:30 |
| Source: | Commercial Aviation Online |
| Location: | Seattle |
| By: | Scott Hamilton |
Studies by Boeing to increase production of the 737 to as high as 60 a month cannot be justified by demand through 2020, or even 2030, according to a new analyst report by Wedbush, a Los Angeles-based investment bank.
In a 16 August research note, Wedbush’s aerospace analyst Kenneth Herbert believes a rate of 50 per month can be supported by 2015 through 2020, but that global demand and competition from new entrants in the 100-200-seat market means Boeing and Airbus can only justify this rate for the 737 and A320 families.
Wedbush also predicts that Boeing will keep production of the 737 re-engine at Renton (WA). Boeing’s CEO, Jim McNerney, said on the manufacturer’s second quarter earnings call that Renton was not the automatic choice for assembling the 737 re-engine and that other options would be considered. Boeing commercial airplanes CEO Jim Albaugh said separately that it will be six-eight months before a decision on the assembly site will be made.
Flightblogger on 737RE, Aeroturbopower on A320 v 737-800
Two very interesting posts came up today.
The first is from Aeroturbopower, a blog that concentrates on engines and engine-related stuff. In today’s post, Aeroturbopower has a very interesting analysis on fuel burn on the Airbus A320 vs the Boeing 737-800. The results may surprise you, given the very effective messaging campaign by Boeing and the equally poor messaging campaign by Airbus.
The second posting, by Fightblogger, confirms what we wrote about a week ago: that Boeing and CFM are close to choosing the 66 inch fan for the 737RE. Flightblogger has more detail than we did and provides a good overview of what the 737RE will likely be.
Qantas, Transaero buy Airbus; Hazy cool to 737RE
AirInsight just posted three pieces about aircraft developments. One concerns the big order from Qantas for A320/A320neos, another is about the Transaero deal for the A320neo and the third is our report referenced in the 777 post below about Steve Hazy’s cool view toward the 737RE.
Boeing continues to work on design definition of the 737RE, with plans to send the program to the Board of Directors this month for approval to launch the airplane.
Assessing the 777 upgrade
The “godfather of leasing,” Steven Udvar-Hazy, the CEO of Air Lease Corp., weighed in on the 737RE and the prospective improvements to the 777 during ALC’s earning’s call. And when Hazy speaks, the industry listens.
Hazy, who favored a new airplane in the 737 class, wasn’t too happy about the 737RE decision and thinks Boeing has a ways to go on developing this aircraft. We’ll have more about this in a separate post.
As for the prospective improvements of the 777, Hazy had this to say:
Narrowing the 737RE design
While the aviation world is waiting to see what the Boeing 737RE will be, information that has emerged publically from Boeing and information we’ve obtained gives, we think, a reasonable picture of what the airplane will look like.
This information is current as of last week. Boeing is still settling on the 737RE design and things could change, but from what has been said and on what we have pieced together, this appears to be a reasonable assessment. It appears the 737RE will largely come down to this:
Boeing comments on the 737RE
As the aviation world waits for Boeing to define the 737RE, it might be worth taking a close look at the July 27 earnings call discussion relating to the airplane, apart from the topic of where the aircraft will be built—we covered that thoroughly last week.
Our resource is the earnings call transcript as published by Seeking Alpha. As we go through the transcript, we will highlight certain statements and then offer some commentary at the end of the section.
Here is what CEO Jim McNerney said in his prepared remarks.
Also in recent months, a broader customer view has emerged in support of the greater certainty of gaining significant incremental improvement in a re-engined 737 in the near to midterm over the more perfect solution which may be available further down the road. It has always been our view that if it looked like we are putting meaningful market share at risk by waiting to do a new airplane, we would re-engine instead. That combined with our new engine technical production assessment against lead time for new engine decision led us to the judgment that we have made.
We are confident that our re-engined 737 will maintain the value proposition we have in the marketplace today and we expect to see strong demand for this product. It will be the most fuel-efficient airplane in its segment and have the lowest operating cost, while also meeting customer needs for range, payload, standardization, reliability and fleet compatibility.
Over the next several weeks, we will continue our work to finalize the configuration and other details in anticipation of a launch this fall pending board approval.
Comment: As we have talked with our various market sources, one believed Boeing would suffer a market-share drop of at least 20% if it elected to proceed with a new airplane instead of a re-engine. This drop would come because customers would pull back on orders for the 737NG while waiting for the new airplane. Whether this is a valid number might be debatable, but the theory is consistent with McNerney’s comments. Earlier this year, Boeing Capital Corp. held an investor’s meeting in New York and remarks indicated that Boeing was prepared to take a 10% 737 market share drop in favor of a new airplane, figuring it would regain it with an aircraft superior to the A320neo family. Then there is the question of whether Boeing could actually afford a new airplane program, a topic McNerney did not address, in light of the losses on the 787 and 747-8 programs and the billions in cost overruns and delayed cash flow. Finally, there was strong undercurrent that the Board of Directors was not prepared to approve another new airplane program with the 787 and 747 programs in the condition they are in.
Aviation Week has new twist on American Airlines Airbus-Boeing deal
Aviation Week has a story on the Airbus-Boeing deal–and says it isn’t really a firm order, likening it to the Boeing 787 of a few years ago.