Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Pontifications: 787 production rate remains a question
By Scott Hamilton
April 10, 2017, © Leeham Co.: Boeing’s first quarter earnings call is scheduled for April 26, two weeks and two days from today. Officials said on the January earnings call, for year-end 2016, that they will decide this year whether to increase the 787 production rate to 14/mo by the end of the decade.
LNC has long believed this won’t happen. In fact, we predicted last September Boeing will have to lower the production rate from 2020.
The question of the rate is sure to come up on the 26th. I doubt CEO Dennis Muilenburg will be prepared to announce a decision one way or the other. It’s Boeing’s pattern to put off announcements like this until the very last minute, so a go-no go on rate 14 probably won’t be announced until toward the end of the year.
Middle Eastern airline turmoil hits Boeing
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Introduction
April 10, 2017, © Leeham Co.: Tim Clark of Emirates Airline said the new breed of long-haul, low cost carriers are hurting EK’s load factors and yields.
Etihad Airlines’ business strategy of taking financial stakes in LCCs hasn’t produced the positive financial results desired.
Three big airlines, EK, EY and Qatar Airways, face over-capacity now compounded by electronic carry-on restrictions by the US and UK.
Figure 1. Click on image for a crisp view.
The thee carriers largely compete for the same connecting traffic through hubs only 72-235 miles apart (Figure 1). This is like having hubs in Milwaukee and Chicago (81 air miles apart) and Chicago-Detroit (237 air miles) with much, much smaller domestic catchment basins.
Summary
- Declining financial results for Emirates, Etihad.
- Deferring airplanes: 787s, 777X
- Long-haul LLC, Trump travel ban, poor investments hurt the airlines.
Bjorn’s Corner: Aircraft engine maintenance, Part 6
By Bjorn Fehrm
April 7, 2017, ©. Leeham Co: Last week’s Corner developed the overhaul shop visits per year for wide-body engines. We will now look at how the market develops around these overhaul opportunities.
How does the shop structure develop over a popular engine’s life-cycle? How much choice has an operator and when?
Figure 1. Principal picture of a three-shaft wide-body turbofan with station numbers. Source: GasTurb.
Things get worse before better at Cathay
April 6, 2017, © Leeham Co.: Cathay Pacific Airways faces a loss this year after posting its first loss in eight years last year.
Analysts following the Hong Kong-based airline see another loss, with declining revenues and pricing pressure from competition.
Could an NMA be made good enough, Part 3?
By Bjorn Fehrm
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Introduction
April 6, 2017, © Leeham Co.: After sizing the cabin of the NMA, the time has now come to size the fuselage. Can a fuselage be designed that gives an NMA “dual aisle comfort with single aisle economics”?
Figure 1. The NMA takes more and more the shape of a 767 replacement (A United 767-200). Source: United
We will investigate the dimensions, the drag and the weight of an NMA fuselage. It will be based on the cabin and design techniques we described in Part 2. We then compare the efficiency of the result with the fuselages of the Airbus A321LR and Boeing 767. This will show if the necessary efficiency can be achieved.
Summary:
- It’s possible to design a dual aisle fuselage with the same perimeter per seat abreast as a single aisle fuselage.
- This will make the central, cylindrical, section have competitive weight and drag characteristics.
- The larger diameter of the dual aisle fuselage will increase the size of the tapered front and rear sections however.
- It’s still possible for an NMA fuselage to be as weight-efficient as a single aisle fuselage, measured per transported passenger.
Pegasus Airlines, bridging Europe and Asia
By Bjorn Fehrm
April 05, 2017, ©. Leeham Co: Turkey’s Pegasus Airlines has its operations center south of Hungary’s Wizz Air that we wrote about last week. With a hub in Istanbul, the Turkish LCC connects Europe and West Asia/Middle East.
Pegasus is a fraction larger than Wizz Air and had the same dynamic development until last year, when the internal unrest in Turkey threw a spanner in the airline’s growth. Read more
Could an NMA be made good enough, Part 2?
By Bjorn Fehrm
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Introduction
April 3, 2017, © Leeham Co.: In the first part of our investigation on how good an NMA can be, we explored low weight and drag fuselage design. We will now continue with the design consequences for the fuselage construction and the cabin.
What drives whether one goes for an Aluminum or CFRP (Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer) fuselage?
Figure 1. The NMA takes more and more the shape of a 767 replacement (A United 767-200 pictured). Source: United.
What will be the typical dimensions for an NMA fuselage and what will be passenger capacities?
Summary:
- An elliptical fuselage will force a CFRP design.
- The fuselage door configuration will be critical for cabin capacity and flexibility.
Naming games
March 31, 2017 (c) Leeham Co.: With the likelihood appearing greater and great Boeing will launch a new, middle of the market sector airplane, what’s the name
Is “A360” a name for the next Airbus aircraft? Or would it be the butt of jokes? Rendering via Google images.
going to be?
Steven Udvar-Hazy, chairman of Air Lease Corp, already calls it the 797. We agree, though until this is a done deal, we’re calling it the 7M7 while in development.
If Airbus responds with a stretched A321neo–anything but a certain prospect–the working title among the press has long been A322. Airbus officials have occasionally called it the A321 Plus-Plus, a name that will hardly roll off the tongue.
If Airbus were to respond with a new twin-aisle, either smaller than the A330-200/800 (which aren’t selling these days) or about the same size, what would this be called? Skipping to A400 doesn’t work: the name is taken by the A400M, which in any event is a snake-bitten name.
Then, what will the replacements for the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 be called.
It’s already assumed “797” is the name of the widely expected Boeing middle of the market airplane. Rendering via Google images.
For Boeing, the “797” runs out the string of 7 Series choices. For Airbus, folklore says it rejected the name “A360” because of the jokes that would be made about the airplane flying in circles if an issue required a return from its takeoff point. According to the same folklore, “A370” was rejected because the “7” harks to Boeing’s 7 Series.
So: just for fun, let’s have some naming contests.
Bjorn’s Corner: Aircraft engine maintenance, Part 5
By Bjorn Fehrm
March 31, 2017, ©. Leeham Co: In the last Corner, we showed flight hour graphs for wide-body engines. Now we will deduce the market for engine overhauls from these graphs.
It will show which engines are still in engine manufacturer care, in their main maintenance cycle and in the sun-set phase.
Figure 1. Principal picture of a three shaft turbofan. Source: GasTurb.
The phase the engine is in and its future flight hour development will decide the attractiveness of the engine for overhaul organizations. Read more
Boeing plots support for 747-8
March 29, 2017, (c) Leeham Co.: Boeing is going to build and buy its own 747-8Fs, then lease them as a way to keep the 747 line alive, reports Bloomberg News.
With the effective shutdown by Congress of the U.S. Export-Import Bank — which traditionally has helped overseas carriers purchase planes — Boeing lost a key sales tool. Making matters worse, leasing companies have been hesitant to finance a plane with a dwindling customer base,” Bloomberg writes.
There are already five white tails, aircraft built for customers that canceled or deferred deliveries indefinitely. Nippon Cargo Airlines just canceled two aircraft, scheduled for delivery this year, which takes this to seven. Others that have canceled or deferred: Arik Air and Transaero. A twice-announced “commitment” from Volga-Dnepr Airlines/Air Bridge Cargo 20 747-8Fs failed to materialize more than four.