Aug. 31, 2015, © Leeham Co. September begins tomorrow and we’re only nine weeks away to the 2015 Dubai Air Show.
We’re looking to this event to be the last big opportunity for major airplane orders for this year. While it’s true that Airbus, Boeing and the other OEMs make a big year-end push to top off the order book, the Dubai show has become increasingly on a par with the Farnborough and Paris air shows, but focused on wide-body orders and program launches.
Eyes on the Dubai Air Show will be watching for what could be would be this year’s prize catch: whether Emirates Airlines will be ready to place the oft-talked about order for 50-70 Airbus A350-900s or Boeing 787-10s. (Some have floated an even higher number.) The other big item of interest: whether Airbus will launch the A380neo.
22 August 2015, ©. Leeham Co: The Russian air show MAKS is taking place in Moscow, on the airfield of Zhukovsky, Southeast of Moscow. The town of Zhukovsky is called the Aero-City of the Russian federation. It houses not only a 17,800ft runway but also the center of the Russian aeronautical research and test knowledge around the gigantic airfield.
Just a couple of miles from the airfield lies the well-known Russian Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute, TsAGI. It has been involved in designing the aerodynamics of all Russian aircraft, including the latest, the Sukhoi Superjet and Irkut’s new MC-21 competitor to the Boeing 737 MAX and Airbus A320neo.
I have always been interested in the enigma of the Soviet and later Russian aeronautical industry. It had such a different structure to its western counterparts and has therefore struggled. The MC-21 is a good example. Ilyushin says they are working on MC-21, as does Yakolev and Irkut. Irkut says it is their aircraft, yet I had not heard of Irkut as a plane OEM before MC-21.
My household names for Russian airliners were Tupolev and Ilyushin with perhaps Yakolev for the smaller types. If we included Ukraine during the Soviet period, we could add Antonov as a known airliner OEM. But not Irkut. Yet today the main players doing new civil airliners are Sukhoi and Irkut, neither known for building airliners. How does this all fit together? Here is a try to sort it out. Read more
Aug. 26, 2015: World air cargo markets continue to struggle, according to reports yesterday from Cargo Facts newsletter and The Wall Street Journal.
Neither report bodes well for new-build, main deck freights, although Cargo Facts concludes a demand remains.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Europe-to-Asia volume and rates are falling.
“Maritime and air freight rates for some of the world’s busiest trade routes are tumbling as slower growth in China combined with a sluggish eurozone economy dash forecasts for higher volumes during the normally busy late-summer season,” writes WSJ’s Robert Wall, who is based in London. “The air-cargo market is suffering on several fronts. Lower demand in Asia is coming at the same time air-cargo capacity is climbing. A large chunk of the air-cargo market is transported in the hold of passenger planes. With major airlines adding flights globally this year, that is weighing on cargo rates. Falling fuel costs also are delaying plans by airlines to retire older jets, exacerbating the problem.”
Cargo Facts takes a different view on the belly capacity.
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Introduction
August 24, 2015, © Leeham Co. When airlines like Indigo of India, Air Asia, Norwegian Air Shuttle (NAS) and Lion Air have outstanding orders for Airbus A320s and Boeing 737s that number in the hundreds, far more than operations and growth appears ready to support, the deals raises the natural question: What are they thinking?
As LNC’s Bjorn Fehrm explained Friday, one aspect of these big orders is to “flip” the aircraft every six or seven years, a time that roughly coincides with the maintenance holiday/warranty period. Sale/leasebacks are used to finance these huge purchases.
The practice is hardly new. The USA’s JetBlue Airlines, Ryanair and others practiced this flip for years.
Carriers like the new LCCs mentioned above not only plan to do so to avoid major maintenance costs, but also to fuel their growth. In the case of Lion Air and NAS, these companies also plan to lease out aircraft to other airlines.
But there remain risks involved for the companies and for the industry.
Summary
21 August 2015, ©. Leeham Co: IndiGo Airlines firmed up Airbus’ largest aircraft sale by unit numbers in the week. The order is for 250 A320neos. This means the airline goes from 180 A320neos on order to 430. The airline is just finishing off its first order with Airbus for 100 A320ceos, the final eight being delivered over the next months.
How can an airline that did not exist 10 years ago order 430 A320neos?
There are a couple of things that makes this possible, one of them being the Sale/Leaseback. Before we go to Sale/Leaseback and how this enables this magnitude of business, let’s take a quick look at IndiGo. It has certain similarities to other airlines that also close large aircraft deals.
By Bjorn Fehrm
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Introduction
Aug. 19 2015, ©. Leeham Co: We will now finish our series over Boeing’s changes to its configuration rule sets by looking at how this affects the Very Large Aircraft (VLA) segment.
Airbus and Boeing used to describe the VLAs in their line-ups using three class cabins, albeit with different standards. Now Boeing has changed its standard to a modern three class seating while Airbus has changed to a four class cabin, including premium economy.
We have enough information of the A380 equipped with a three class cabin to be able to make a comparison using three class rule sets. We will therefore apply a three class cabin to the A380 and 747-8 that will have modern seating standards and pair that with Boeing’s tougher payload weights and enroute reserves.
Summary:
07 August 2015, ©. Leeham Co: Now that we have explained the range consequences of weight and fuel limited airplane operations, we might as well explain the last important part of the range of an airliner: Why the practical range is always shorter than what the OEM says.
When an airliner OEM gives the design or brochure maximum range of an aircraft, they do that with an aircraft in a “show-room” configuration and which is loaded with a filled cabin only; no cargo is included in the calculation. Further, in the cargo area, there is only bulk-loaded passenger bags. Container loading of the bags would have cost tare weight for the containers used and weight is to be avoided when stipulating the maximum design range.
In practice, we would have to consider tare weight for bags containers and possible cargo when discussing what practical range an airline can plan for a certain aircraft model. But this is far from the whole story. Here is what has to be considered in addition.
July 30, 2015: Scott Fancher, regarded as the person to come in and take over troubled programs at Boeing, has been named to take over the KC-46A program.
Fancher originally came to Boeing Commercial Airplanes from the Boeing defense unit to take over the 787 program at a time when development and design issues were rampant and the plane had yet to be delivered to a single customer.
After that was straightened out, Fancher took over new airplane programs and then moved to oversee development of the 777X, which is Boeing’s response to the Airbus A350 XWB. Although the 777X is a derivative, Boeing’s 747-8 derivative was two years late (in no small part due to the knock-on effects of the 787 program problems). Fancher’s charge with 777X was to be sure it comes in on time and on budget.