Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Leeham News and Analysis
- Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 25. June 6, 2025
- New RISE powerplant benefits from decades of GE research and development June 5, 2025
- Engine makers emphasizing durability, reliability June 4, 2025
- Boeing CEO: Lessons learned are key to certification of 737-7/10 and 777X June 2, 2025
- Digital twin is a key to JetZero’s hopes for Blended Wing Body entry June 2, 2025
Finnair exanding Far East faster than planned
By Bjorn Fehrm
May 26, 2016, ©. Leeham Co: Finnair could tell the participants on its Capital Markets Day yesterday that its Asia expansion plans are going better than planned. Being the Finnish national flag carrier, Finnair has had its slew of legacy airline problems, fighting the up-and-coming LCCs on its European network.
Figure 1. Finnair’s Airbus A350-900 taking off from Toulouse. Source: Airbus
After a restructuring period 2008 to 2012 to adjust costs, things have turned for the better. The company announced a revised strategic plan 2014, which would build on the strategic position of its hub, the Helsinki Vaanta airport, for traffic to the Far East.
Finnair CEO, Pekka Vauramo, could yesterday announce that this strategy is working better than planned.
Pontifications: ICAO continues to drag feet on real-time data transmission
By Scott Hamilton
May 23, 2016, © Leeham Co.: Malaysia Airlines MH370. Air Asia 8501. Egyptair 804.
Three passenger flights lost over the oceans. One, MH370, remains undiscovered to this day. Air Asia took a couple of weeks to locate. Egyptair debris took about 36 hours. The black boxes are still missing from MH370. Once the Air Asia wreckage was discovered, the boxes were recovered fairly quickly. According to media reports, the black boxes of 804 have been “generally” located, but Egypt has dispatched a submarine to more precisely locate them.
The absence of real-time data transmission from the Flight Data Recorders contributed to the mysteries of what happened to these aircraft and spurred wild theories and conspiracies. ACARS, which does transmit data from airborne aircraft, does so at intervals–not real-time. Real-time data streaming from on board transmissions could provide immediate answers to what happened to an airliner.
Bjorn’s Corner: Transponders, the kingpin of safe air navigation
By Bjorn Fehrm
May 19, 2016, ©. Leeham Co: In my recent Corners, I have been describing how a modern airliner navigates using a Flight Management System, (FMS or Computer, FMC) to navigate along the flight plan and how it finally uses an instrument landing system to safely land the aircraft even in bad weather.
When looking into instrument landing systems, we have described the legacy systems which require large ground installations (such as ILS) and how these can be replaced in the future with smarter concepts using GPS based procedures.
I will now continue on this path and describe some of the additional cornerstone technologies needed to implement a modernized Air Traffic Control (ATC) system, which can replace today’s systems that have their roots in World War 2 (WW2) technology.
We will start today with how aircraft can be seen from the ground or other aircraft without visual sight or Radar contact. Read more
Areas of inquiry in Egyptair 804 crash
May 19, 2016: (c) Leeham Co.: Investigators will look into many areas of interest, all a
An Airbus A320 like this one operated by Egyptair disappeared last night in what is already suspected terrorism. Photo via Google images.
matter of routine, into the disappearance and crash of Egyptair 804.
According to media reports, debris and bodies have been found in the Mediterranean Sea. The Airbus A320 disappeared on a flight from Paris to Cairo. There have been several media reports of in-flight fire observed in the sky and maneuvers of the aircraft. Russian officials and others say terrorism is likely.
LNC urges caution in drawing conclusions, however.
The following are areas of investigation:
ANA CEO opens ISTAT Asia 2016
By Bjorn Fehrm in Tokyo
May 18, 2016, ©. Leeham Co: The CEO of All Nippon Airways (ANA) Osamu Shinobe opened the 2016 International Society of Transport Aircraft Trading (ISTAT) conference in Tokyo today, in front of some 700 delegates. Shinobe presented an overview of the airline’s recent success and its future plans. This includes the plans for use of the three Airbus A380 that the airline bought in January this year.
ANA is Japan’s most successful carrier in recent years, leading the incumbent Japan Airlines in revenue and profits since 2010. The airline had its historical base in a large domestic market share but has been complementing that with an aggressive international expansion in recent years.
All Nippon Airways Boeing 787 in special Starwars livery. Source: ANA
Its landmark buy of Boeing 787 Dreamliners shall be seen in this context. The 787, for which ANA was the launch customer, is the kingpin in ANA’s expansion plans, where an expanding international network shall feed the established domestic network. Read more
Pontifications: Derivatives at Boeing
By Scott Hamilton
May 9, 2016, © Leeham Co.: Last week proved to be significant when the CEO of The Boeing Co. and the head of the 737 MAX program each said the company is looking at revising its smallest member of the family, the MAX 7, and potentially enlarging the biggest member, the MAX 9.
Neither prospect was news. Jon Ostrower of The Wall Street Journal revealed the prospect of what he called the MAX 7.5, a slightly larger airplane than the current MAX 7. The idea of an airplane larger than the MAX 9, based on the MAX 9, was floated when Jim McNerney was still CEO.
What was news is that for the first time, the Boeing CEO and the head of the MAX program went on record essentially admitting the MAX line isn’t well positioned against Airbus after all. Or, on the lower end, to Bombardier.
Inflight Internet
By Bjorn Fehrm
06 April 2016, ©. Leeham Co., Hamburg, Germany: On the second day of the Aircraft Interior eXpo, AIX 2016, we checked out the In-flight Internet situation. What interested us was why is there such lousy Internet performance on many airlines today and what will be done about it over the next few years. We got a good picture on why things are as they are and how this will change within quite a short time.
Rather than go through what a lot of vendors will do, we will try to describe the root problems involved and what is done by the industry to change that. We will also mention some of the key players that are attacking the subject.
But let’s start with the problem. Figure 1 shows where the world’s main airline routes are right now.
Figure 1. World air traffic taken from FlightRadar24 at 23.00 CET on 05.04.2016. Source: FR24. Click to see better.
As can be seen, the world air traffic is not very evenly distributed. One third of the world has intense traffic and two-thirds not so much or none at all. Read more
Alaska, Virgin confirm merger
April 4, 2016, (c) Leeham Co.: Alaska Air Group and Virgin America confirmed weekend reports that they reached a deal to merge.
The replay of the Alaska webcast/conference call, with slide show, is here.
Rationale includes what LNC outlined in our March 29 post: growth, access to more gates and slots. Alaska officials said Virgin’s presences in California, combined with Alaska, will give Alaska to #1 market share position on the US West Coast, passing Southwest Airlines’ 21% by one percent.
Here are some highlights from the conference call:
Bombardier’s Delta deal looking good, but don’t celebrate yet
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Introduction
Air Baltic will be the first operator of the Bombardier CS300. Source: Bombardier.
April 18, 2016, © Leeham Co.: Bombardier, if it didn’t dominate the news cycle in commercial aviation last week, must have come close. Consider:
While on balance, it seems likely Delta will order the C Series, Bombardier has been down this road before. Only a few months ago, the market and others were excited over the prospect that BBD was close to landing an order from United Airlines, only to see Boeing swoop in and grab the deal.
Summary
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Posted on April 18, 2016 by Scott Hamilton
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