Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
PNAA Conference Day 1: Aerospace Clusters
- Feb. 9, 2016: Today is the first of three days of conference meetings organized by
the Pacific Northwest Aerospace Alliance (PNAA), in Lynnwood (WA). We’re providing live reporting throughout the three days.
Aerospace clusters are evolving throughout the world, said Kevin Michael, vice president of ICF International.
California is on the decline. Two new clusters on the rise are Mexico and the Southeastern US. The Netherlands and Singapore are successful, long-term clusters.
California was the premier aerospace cluster for decades, but its demise began when Lockheed chose Georgia as the location to build the C-130. The founding of Airbus was not good news for SoCal, and neither was the end of the Cold War. The acquisition of McDonnell Douglas by Boeing in 1997 further precipitated the decline of SoCal.
Pontifications: Dissecting Boeing’s 2016 delivery guidance
By Scott Hamilton
Feb. 8, 2016, © Leeham Co.: Boeing’s surprise guidance for 2016 for fewer deliveries on the 737 and 767 lines raised as many questions as officials answered on the Jan. 27 earnings call.
The lower guidance led to about a 9% drop in stock, from $128 to $115. As of Friday, the stock had recovered some, trading in the low $120s.
Boeing’s explanation about the lower guidance for 737 deliveries—12 fewer this year than in 2015—seemed, on the surface, reasonable. As the 737 MAX entered production, both with test aircraft and the first production airplanes, officials said this will lead to fewer deliveries of the NG.
But as stock analysts digested the information, skepticism arose. David Strauss of UBS issued a note last week in which he concluded the real reason for the lower deliveries is a likely production gap—not enough NG sales were achieved to bridge the gap from the NG to the MAX.
Bjorn’s Corner: Efficient systems
By Bjorn Fehrm
05 February 2016, © Leeham Co: In recent Corners, we looked into technologies which have made the new breed of airliners more efficient.
We’ve talked about how new engines can raise efficiency by about 15% and how aerodynamic improvements, like more efficient split winglets, can add another 1%-2% over single blade winglets. We have also looked into modern ways to manufacture the more resilient and lighter composites structures that designers want to use to increase aircraft efficiency.
There is one area which we have not covered: the aircraft’s systems and how these can be made more efficient. An improved system architecture can add the efficiency improvement of a split winglet. So let’s have a look at the trends in aircraft systems.
We start this week with power distribution.
Can the 787 pay its debts?
By Bjorn Fehrm
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Introduction
04 February, 2015, © Leeham Co: Boeing has presented its results for the last quarter of 2015. It was a quarter for Boeing with solid performance in revenue ($96.1bn) and in cash generation ($9.4bn).
Despite that, Wall Street was not pleased. The 747-8 program is not selling well and the upcoming production bridges for 737NG to 737 MAX and 777 to 777X are no longer to be ignored.
The results presentation is also our chance to check our analysis around the 787 program; will it be able to pay its debts within the forecasted period by Boeing (in the program accounting block of 1,300 units)?
Summary:
- Boeing reports deferred costs in line with or slightly better than expectations. We decode what this means for the deferral curve for the 787 and from which parts of the 787 program the improvements came.
- Smith also gave new information regarding learning effects for 787-8 and 787-9 and when the 787 goes cash positive. We check if this changes any of our assumptions for our forecast for the program. Read more
The MAX flies ahead of time
By Bjorn Fehrm
2 February 2016, ©. Leeham Co: The Boeing 737 MAX flew for the first time Friday. On Saturday it was in the air again. Boeing has communicated they will deliver the first aircraft to Southwest next year in the third quarter. We doubt it.
Boeing 737 MAX 8 takes off for first flight. Picture: Seattle Times.
It will be earlier, barring a major problem cropping up (and the chances are good there will be none).
Delivery of aircraft projects ahead of time is almost unheard of. And when it is Boeing that looks like being early, people start to think about the Dreamliner debacle. It was over three years late.
We would say: absolutely be skeptical, but in this case, there is reason for optimism.
A380 order welcome, but may not add to Airbus backlog
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Introduction
The news of orders by Iran Air and ANA for 12 and three A380s respectively is good news for Airbus, but 
these probably don’t do much to boost the backlog in practical terms.
These orders will likely replace some of those in the A380 backlog that are unlikely to be delivered.
In our annual examination of the backlogs of Airbus and Boeing, little has changed for the A380—until the Iran Air and ANA orders, there hasn’t been a sale of the A380 in more than two years.
Summary
- As deliveries continue, the backlog shrinks.
- Orders from Virgin Atlantic are deferred and unlikely to be delivered. Look for a swap to another Airbus aircraft.
- Amedeo has yet to place any of its orders. First deliveries in 2017.
- Air Austral orders deferred, unlikely delivery.
Pontifications: Bad week for aerospace stocks
Feb. 1, 2016, © Leeham Co. Ouch.
By Scott Hamilton
Boeing stock tanked about 10% last Wednesday when the company surprised analysts with unexpected news and below expectations 2016 guidance.
Bombardier became a penny stock.
What the heck happened?
Bjorn’s Corner: Exciting 2016
By Bjorn Fehrm
29 January 2016, ©. Leeham Co: In the corner of two weeks ago we did a retrospective of 2015. Time for looking ahead. The year of 2016 will be quite interesting. We had entry into service of the first re-engine single aisle aircraft this week, the Airbus A320neo, the same week as we expect first flight from its main competitor, Boeing’s 737 MAX 8. We will also see first flight of the Embraer E190E2 and A350-1000 before the year is over.
The Mitsubishi MRJ shall go test flying in earnest and Bombardier’s CSeries 100 and 300 shall enter service. On top of that, the COMAC 919 will probably start ground roll tests this year and we should see roll out of Irkut’s MC-21. I would say 2016 is a busy year for civil aviation.
In the 2015 corner we talked a lot about engine technology as a key driver to further efficiency of air transportation. Now will dissect the airframe technology that all these new projects will bring us. Read more
Worry over Boeing 737 production rate ramp up overblown
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Introduction
Jan. 27, 2016, © Leeham Co. As Airbus prepares to hike production rates of the A320 family to 60/mo by the end of the decade and Boeing mulls whether to boost 737 
rates above the announced 57/mo announced today, some question whether the companies should do so.
The questions become more frequent as falling fuel prices make the need for the fuel efficient A320neo and 737 MAX appear to be less compelling. The economic turmoil in China adds to uncertainties.
Today we take a look at the 737 order book, based on Dec. 31 data, and extrapolate this to announced and potential future production rate hikes, and draw conclusions whether the rates announced and those under study make sense.
We will look at the A320 backlog in a future post.
Summary
- Looking at firm orders only with actual delivery dates shows minor production gaps.
- Large MAX TBD, unidentified customers make drawing firm conclusions difficult.
- Options and LOIs from solid customers show some years oversold.
Boeing Outlook: 777 rate cut, 737 hike (Update 2)
- Due to technical problems with the webcast, Boeing ended the earnings call this morning before Q&A and rescheduled at 1pm EST.
- The original, short post is updated with the re-do of the earnings call.
- The PDF slide show is here.
- See Scott Hamilton’s column on Forbes.
Jan. 27, 2016: Boeing’s outlook for 2016 disappointed Wall Street for lower-than-expected revenue, earnings per share and delivery projections, spurring a sell-off in the stock by almost 10% in the first hour of trading before the earnings call.
Because of a late Tuesday night story in The Seattle Times that a production rate cut in the 777 Classic line was coming, analysts expected this news. Boeing made it official: the 777 rate to 7/mo in 2017, a figure that was telegraphed in pre-Paris Air Show briefings last year. Boeing says it is confident of maintaining this production rate until entry-into-service of the 777X in 2020.
The production of the 737 will increase to 57/mo in 2019, which was forecast by LNC last year.