Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Analysis: Mitsubishi suspends development of M100, continues M90 due to COVID
By Scott Hamilton
Analysis
May 12, 2020, © Leeham News: Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) yesterday said it cut development money for the M100 SpaceJet. M100 R&D is suspended indefinitely while it continues for the M90 on half rations.
MHI will continue certification of the M90.
MHI also said it will reevaluate demand for the M100 because of COVID-19 impacts.
This immediately raised questions whether MHI may kill the M100 program.
To do so will squander MHI’s once-in-a-lifetime chance to become a real global power in commercial aviation. If this happens, “Japan Inc.” also loses a chance to be part of this.
Pontifications: Boeing focuses on design, production vs airplane development–for now
By Scott Hamilton
By Scott Hamilton
May 11, 2020, © Leeham News: Boeing killed development of its alphabet soup of airplane concepts for now.
“For now” is a relative term. When Boeing will be ready to show concepts to customers as a prelude to a program launch depends on how quickly the industry recovers from the COVID crisis.
But research and development of a streamlined production system, once key to new airplane projects, continues.
CEO David Calhoun said on the 1Q2020 earnings call that the New Midmarket Airplane (NMA) is essentially dead. He said in the following media call that the “differentiators” for the next new airplane from Boeing or Airbus will be manufacturing and engineering.
Supply chain focus: Safran’ s first 2020 quarter
By Bjorn Fehrm
May 5, 2020, ©. Leeham News: Next out in our COVID19 supply chain focus is Safran Group.
Safran, together with GE Aviation, is the largest supplier of turbofan engines to the World’s airliners. Their success in the CFM joint venture is unprecedented. The first joint engine, the CFM56 has passed 30,000 deliveries, and the follow-up, the CFM LEAP, has 16,000 orders.
At the back of this successful business, Safran has expanded to a major aeronautical supplier for propulsion, systems, and cabins.
Seattle Times, reporting team win Pulitzer Prize for Boeing 737 MAX coverage
May 5, 2020, © Leeham News: The Seattle Times and its reporting team won a Pulitzer Prize, it was announced yesterday, for its coverage of the Boeing 737 MAX crisis.
The team is Dominic Gates, Steve Miletich, Mike Baker and Lewis Kamb.
Boeing sees air traffic recovering in 2-3 years; production will take longer
By Scott Hamilton
April 27, 2020, © Leeham News: Passenger traffic should recover to 2019 pre-COVID-19 levels in two to three years. But resuming production at pre-COVID rates will take longer.
Boeing also needs to borrow more money in the next six months to get through the crisis.
These were among the announcements at the Boeing annual shareholders meeting today at which all 12 management-support directors were elected or reelected to the Board of Directors.
Pontifications: Taking a knife to a gunfight
April 27, 2020, © Leeham News: There is a great line in the movie, The Untouchables. Sean Connery’s character tells an assassin that he’s bringing a knife to a gunfight.
By Scott Hamilton
That’s what came to mind when Embraer says it will seek remedies against Boeing following the latter’s terminating the joint venture agreement between the two companies.
In the movie, the assassin lured Connery into a trap. Connery was gunned down by a machine gun. But don’t expect Boeing to be lured into any trap by Embraer.
Boeing doesn’t pull a move like this without thinking through all the possibilities. It may muff the thought process, as will be noted below, but it does think through alternatives.
Analysis: The collapse of the Boeing-Embraer joint venture
By the Leeham News Team
Analysis
April 25, 2020, © Leeham News: The Boeing-Embraer joint venture is off.
Boeing called off the JV, saying Embraer didn’t satisfy all the conditions required.
The Boeing-Embraer joint venture is dead.
The impact to Embraer is more profound than to Boeing.
When the JV was announced in 2019, the advantages for Boeing were:
- Access to EMB engineers at a time when Boeing’s are aging and ready to retire.
- Access to much lower cost base in Brazil.
- KC-390 program.
- Revenue from EMB Commercial services.
- E2 program, though this is tangential.
The advantages for Embraer were:
- Access to Boeing’s vast customer base, marketing power, balance sheet (again, pre-virus) and capital markets.
- Access to work on new airplane programs: NMA (at the time), Future Small Airplanes (single aisle, either to compete with A220 or larger).
- Work for its engineers.
- A future beyond the struggling E2 and beyond the fanciful turboprop concept.
- A future for Embraer Commercial Airplanes, which in LNA’s view was increasingly risky.
Can a passenger airliner run as a freighter with today’s tariffs? Part 4.
By Bjorn Fehrm
Subscription Required
Introduction
April 23, 2020, © Leeham News: We spent the last weeks checking if passenger airliners used as belly freighters make economic sense.
With the present air freight prices, it does. The high freight prices are a result of half the World’s freight capacity disappearing with the grounding of passenger jets.
Our economic analysis assumed standard densities for the belly cargo. What happens if this is no longer the case? Can more voluminous cargo fly in the passenger cabin?
Figure 1. Air Canada Boeing 777 with humanitarian supplies (face masks) transported in the cabin. Source: Air Canada.
Summary:
- Widebody aircraft can temporarily fly as belly freighters without loading cargo in the cabin, but enabling cabin cargo will improve the business case with the present lower-density cargo.
- For single-aisle jets the belly cargo holds are too small, a cabin cargo loading system is necessary for efficient operation.
- Is it OK to take out the seats and load cargo in the cabin? For normal cargo no, it isn’t. We check what is required.
Supply chain focus: Hexcel’s first 2020 quarter
By Bjorn Fehrm
April 22, 2020, ©. Leeham News: With the COVID-19 meltdown of airline traffic and aircraft deliveries, we place a special focus on the airliner industry supply chain in the next months.
Hexcel Corporation reported its 1Q2020 yesterday. In addition to the absence of MAX deliveries for a year, the mounting COVID crisis meant revenue was down with 11% year on year and profits 40%. The merger with Woodward Inc. is off. “This is the time for crisis management, not a merger,” said management.
Hexcel is a key supplier to Airbus A350.
Read more
Is COVID-19 a Force Majeure event?
Editor’s Note: Airbus, Boeing and Embraer and other OEMs face requests for deferrals and perhaps cancellations of orders as a result of COVID-19. In addition, Boeing now faces cancellation requests for the 737 MAX grounding, now in its 13th month. While Boeing’s contracts generally allow Boeing or the customer to cancel the order after the 12th month, the COVID crisis raises a new element: canceling by Force Majeure and something called the Doctrine of Frustration.
The following analysis appeared March 12, 2020, on the website of the law firm Shearman & Sterling law firm. The authors are listed at the end of this article. It is reprinted here with permission.
Following the rapid spread of the novel coronavirus (“COVID-19”) that was first reported in Wuhan, China at the end of 2019, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 to be a pandemic on March 11, 2020.
In this note, we consider how force majeure provisions in commercial contracts and the related common law doctrine of frustration may be engaged in the context of the COVID-19 outbreak. While this analysis focuses primarily on the position under English law, we have included a PRC law perspective because of the significant impact COVID-19 has had on business in China. We also suggest steps that parties may take to safeguard their positions in view of the evolving situation.