Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Leeham News and Analysis
- Boeing CEO promises company is turning around…again April 24, 2024
- Solid start for stand-alone GE Aerospace despite cuts to LEAP output April 23, 2024
- SPEEA, Boeing at impasse over safety program, union says April 23, 2024
- Better transparency needed on Boeing’s 1Q earnings call April 22, 2024
- Bjorn’s Corner: New engine development. Part 4. Propulsive efficiency April 19, 2024
Pontifications: National policy, national security
By Scott Hamilton
June 15, 2015, c. Leeham Co. The battle between the the Big Three US carriers, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines, vs the Big Three Middle Eastern carriers, Emirates Airline, Etihad Airways and Qatar Airways, was a big over-hang at the 71st International Air Transportation Assn. Annual General Assembly last week.
The US3 charge that the ME3 have received around $42bn in subsidies and claim continued government support put them at a disadvantage. Loads of information has been reported, with claims and counter-claims going back and forth. But the IATA conference attendees, including members of the media, were looking for sparks to fly between Doug Parker, CEO of American Airlines, who was on a couple of panels and who was voted president of IATA for the next year, Tim Clark, president of Emirates and Akbar Al-Baker, CEO of Qatar.
Bjorn’s Corner: Hot competition in Middle east.
By Bjorn Fehrm
- Boeing needs hundreds of 777 orders to bridge the production gap is now open to all Readers.
By Bjorn Fehrm
Introduction
12 June 2015, C. Leeham Co: Earlier in the week we had an interesting interview with Sir Tim Clark, , president and COO of Emirates Airline. We discussed Emirates’ requirement for a twin aisle medium/long range complement to their Airbus A380 and Boeing 777 fleets. The competition is between Boeing’s 787-10 and Airbus’ A350-900. So far the assumptions have been that the 787-10 will be hard to beat on pure costs per seat for mid-range requirements in the 300-seat segment.
The 787-10 seats 323 passengers in Boeing’s old-fashioned IAC three class seating and 331 in our more modern, normalized two class seating with 60 inch angled lie flat in Business and 32 inch economy section. The A350-900 has so far seated 313 seats in the same normalized seating standard. Recent cabin changes by Airbus can now increase that to close to 330 seats. The configuration changes were originally conceived for A350-1000 but we believe Airbus will offer these to Emirates and they will make it into the -900 catalog.
The 787-10 is lighter and would therefore be more effective on fuel but the difference is small, given the A350-900’s more modern engines. So the overall discussion was that 787-10 had found its ideal customer, in need of many seats, a solid mid-range performance and lowest cost. That was until Monday’s interview with Clark.
We want engine choice, say airlines at IATA
Willie Walsh, CEO of British Airways, says sole-sourcing the engine on the 747-8 cost Boeing an order. BA bought the Airbus A380 instead. Photo source: SI.WSJ.net via Google images.
June 9, 2015, c. Leeham Co. Airlines want engine choices, not sole-source on airplanes, airlines said at the International Air Transport Assn. (IATA) Annual General Meeting in Miami Beach (FL).
Sole-sourcing cost Boeing a major order for the slow-selling 747-8, said Willie Walsh, CEO of British Airways. Relations at the time between British and GE Aviation, the sole engine provider on the 747-8, were so poor BA decided instead to order the Airbus A380, where a choice between the Engine Alliance GP7200 and the Rolls-Royce Trent 900 was possible GE is a JV partner in Engine Alliance with Pratt & Whitney. BA bought Rolls.
IATA: Lufthansa welcomes US carriers to Mid-East dispute
Carsten Spohr, CEO of Lufthansa Group
June 7, 2015: The chief executive officer of Lutfhansa Airlines said he welcomes the Big Three US airliners to the dispute over whether the Big Three Middle Eastern carriers are unfairly competing against legacy airlines.
Carsten Spohr, CEO of Lufthansa Group, told a press conference on the opening day of the IATA Annual General Meeting that LH has long been complaining about Emirates Airline, Qatar Airways and Etihad Airways and their aggressive expansion, first in Europe and now the US.
American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines are challenging open skies and subsidies to the ME3.
IATA AGM opens against mixed signals from industry
Miami Beach (FL), June 7, 2015: The International Air Transport Assn. (IATA) Annual General Meeting (AGM) opens against a backdrop of conflicting signals from the industry, including from the organization itself.
On the one hand, IATA said last week freight traffic declined in April after a robust start through the first three months of the year. Freight traffic is usually a harbinger of passenger traffic.
On the other hand, IATA said April passenger traffic was up higher than usual.
At the same time, Delta Air Lines warned its passenger revenue per available seat mile was falling on weaker short-term business bookings and Southwest Airlines continued a fare sale that, given typically strong load factors and going into the historically strong third quarter, indicates weaker traffic.
Bjorn’s corner: Conversion to A350, we talk to Finnair.
By Bjorn Fehrm.
Introduction
June 4, 2015, c. Leeham Co. In our article series around A350 we now finish by covering how an airline prepares its pilots for flying A350. Here we were given the possibility to interview Finnair’s Flight Safety Manager Tapani Toppari on how Finnair will use Airbus training to convert their A330/340 pilots to include A350 in their type ratings.
Christian Norden, Airbus Director for A350 Flight Training, also furnished us with more information on how Airbus has improved their training philosophy for A350 training. This new training concept, called Evidence Based Training, has been developed by Airbus and other OEMs in cooperation with ICAO to counteract the tendency revealed by recent accidents that pilots had lost their manual flying skills and had deficiencies in their capability to solve unexpected problems.
Embraer ramps up smaller airplane messaging
Figure 1. Click on image to enlarge.
May 28, 2015, c. Leeham Co. Embraer is ramping up is messaging that the E-Jet family provides a better Return on Capital Employed in many circumstance than the larger Airbus and Boeing single-aisle family.
In a new push to be unveiled at the Paris Air Show in a little over two weeks, Embraer will describe its “New Metrics for Success” to an international audience in an open forum.
EMB has been showing airlines and lessors the concept for some time, and we received a briefing on the essential elements when we visited EMB last October at is home base in San Jose, Brazil.
New Metrics for Success takes airlines away from the traditional metric of economics, the Cost per Available Seat mile, and focuses trip costs and the higher quality revenue obtained by limiting the number of low-yield seats on a flight that must be offered to fill larger airplanes. Read more
Pontifications: Fare and market share wars
By Scott Hamilton
May 25, 2015, c. Leeham Co. Airline stocks took a dive last week when it appeared fare wars and eroding capacity discipline is beginning among US carriers.
Southwest Airlines said it will be adding capacity at the rate of 6%-7% compared with recent increases of 2%-3% and American Airlines said it will begin matching the prices of Low Cost and Ultra Low Cost Carriers rather than see its market share erode.
And the markets went into a tizzy.
I’m old enough to remember when American aggressively matched the low fares of the emerging new entrant airlines after deregulation in the 1980s. The matching spread and the 1980s became a bloodbath. Read more