Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Staffing shortages affect Air Traffic Control, NOTAMS, updates–and Boeing
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Part 1 of 2 Parts
By Colleen Mondor
Oct. 2, 2025, © Leeham News: The Trump Administration’s drive to cut employment in the federal government slashed numbers across virtually every agency and department.
But for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which has perpetually been understaffed across its air traffic controllers (ATC), technicians, and certification units, the impact exacerbates an already tenuous situation.
Credit: Federal Aviation Administration.
For airlines and passengers, delays have skyrocketed at key airports, followed by a surge in cancellations. Operating costs skyrocketed for the airlines as scores or aircraft sat on taxiways waiting to take off or backed up on the tarmac awaiting a gate occupied by airplanes that couldn’t take off.
Runway incursions have increased, as have near-collisions in mid-air.
Shortages of aircraft certification employees at the FAA have slowed Boeing’s recovery from six years of sorting out its crises and “ticketing authority” as the FAA scrutinizes the company. FAA certification of the Airbus A321XLR was slow, adding to the one-year delay of its entry into service.
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Special Note
The US federal government shut down at midnight on Sept. 30 when Congress failed to pass a Continuing Resolution to fund the government. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) laid off more than 11,000 employees. Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA) has been under strict FAA scrutiny since March 2019, notably for 737 MAX production, safety, and quality control issues. The FAA revoked BCA’s ability to certify its new airplanes as airworthy before delivery to customers, assuming this responsibility.
On Sept. 29, the FAA partially returned this authority to Boeing, which now may certify the airplanes on a weekly alternating schedule. With the government shutdown, the question of FAA’s oversight and certification of Boeing airplanes arises. Boeing declined comment, but Boeing has told customers that at least for now, production rates, certification, and FAA oversight activities will continue uninterrupted. This may change if the government shutdown is prolonged.
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Staffing shortages among controllers at Newark Liberty International Airport will cause existing cuts in flight service to be extended through October 2026, Reuters reported on Sept. 25.
This was the latest in a litany of news articles highlighting staffing issues within the nation’s air traffic control system. The Washington Post reported in July that nearly 20% of recruits at the FAA training academy failed to complete the training program, contributing to shortages. It then followed up on Sept. 21 that the academy was struggling with instructor shortages.
USA Today asked in May, “Why air traffic control is under so much stress”, while NPR spoke with controllers in July and declared the “…push to modernize equipment won’t fix deeper problems.”
Perspective on Boeing’s 737 replacement
By Scott Hamilton
Sept. 30, 2025, © Leeham News: The Wall Street Journal billed the story as an exclusive, and it did contain details previously unreported.
But the fact that Boeing is working on a 737 replacement isn’t new, even if Boeing has been super-quiet about it. The breadcrumbs have been dropped into public sight all along, and within aviation circles, more has been discussed as well.
Under former CEO David Calhoun, he and other executives discussed the 737 replacement in the form of the transonic truss brace wing (TTBW) single-aisle concept. The very wide, thin wing had about 35 feet of folding wing (as opposed to the folding wing tips on the 777X).
Boeing and Airbus are designing future wings with long folds to allow much greater wingspan than today’s wings. The future folding wings will have a much long fold than the Boeing 777X. Credit: Leeham News.
What Boeing didn’t say publicly, but which was known within aviation circles, was that Boeing was also designing a conventional wing-and-tube 737 replacement in parallel. Boeing always has a Plan A and a Plan B under study, so this was no surprise. But a former 737 program engineer told LNA that Boeing needed a Plan B in this case to serve as a baseline against which the TTBW could be compared for efficiency.
When Calhoun’s successor, Kelly Ortberg, killed the TTBW, Boeing said research and development on the wing would continue. Of course, it would be a replacement for a 737. Why else continue this very specific R&D? Not inconsequentially, Airbus has long been designing a folding wing “Wing of Tomorrow” for the A320 replacement.
Furthermore, the underlying research into the TTBW’s fuselage and systems may be applied to a new airplane, just as elements of the Sonic Cruiser made their way into the 787 in the early 2000s.
How’s the next new aircraft produced? Part 7. Other OEMs.
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By the Leeham News Team
Sept. 25, 2025, © Leeham News: In Part 1 of this series, we described the production system for Embraer. Should Embraer or any other OEM enter the race for the next aircraft in the single aisle segment, it will pose the same challenges as for Boeing and Airbus.
Embraer has recovered from the collapse of the Boeing-EMB joint venture, and the E195-E2 is selling well. But the regional jet market is limited. Embraer is considering whether to move up to the mainline jet sector. Credit: Embraer.
The aircraft must integrate new types of engines, and large parts must be made with the new types of composites that enable high-rate production.
Little impact seen on Boeing by Trump’s new H1B visa policy
By Scott Hamilton
Sept. 23, 2025, © Leeham News: President Trump’s announcement last Friday that there will be a $100,000 fee on new applications for H1B business visas doesn’t appear to have much effect on Boeing.
Boeing has, for years, utilized foreign national engineers from Russia, India, Ukraine, and possibly other countries for work performed domestically. Foreigners are granted entry into the US to work under what’s called an H-1 B visa.
Boeing, tech companies, and other businesses commonly sponsor H1B visas. At Boeing, this has been a sore point for the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA), the union representing engineers and technical employees. SPEEA views each H1B visa engineer as displacing a local engineer or technician.
Under Trump’s Executive Order, which imposes a $100,000 fee, several exemptions appear to apply to Boeing and other companies. According to a US government website, a $100,000 payment must accompany any new H-1B visa petitions submitted after 12:01 am EDT on Sept. 21, 2025.
The relevant exemptions that appear to apply to Boeing are any previously issued H1B visas, or any petitions submitted before 12:01 am EDT on Sept. 21. Nor does the new policy “prevent any holder of a current H1B visa from traveling in and out of the United States.”
Boeing’s H1B visa holders
Boeing has been utilizing foreign nationals in its engineering programs since at least the development of the 787. According to the website Myvisajobs.com, Boeing certified 42 applications in 2022 and 33 in 2021. So far this year, Boeing has applied for 10 people.
The average annual salary was just under $142,000. The average stay in the US by Boeing workers is unknown. However, it is known that once Boeing has employed a worker for two years, they become a member of SPEEA. LNA understands that Boeing rotates H1B workers back to their home country before the two-year period is up and brings in new workers, thereby avoiding the unionization of these workers.
SPEEA declined to comment.
Boeing’s Orberg: Striving for parity with Airbus deliveries
- Traveled work, rework are still obstacles
- 777X certification running late; customers now see first deliveries in 4Q2026
By Karl Sinclair
Sept. 17, 2025, © Leeham News: “We were almost at parity on deliveries with Airbuses last month…. We’re getting there.”
Kelly Ortberg, the CEO of The Boeing Co. Credit: Boeing.
That was the opening salvo from The Boeing Company (BA) and CEO Kelly Ortberg, as it begins to claw its way back from the depths after a difficult six-year stretch.
Speaking at the Morgan Stanley Laguna Conference, Ortberg closed his interview by remarking on how close Boeing was getting to delivering aircraft at levels only recently seen by Airbus.
“I feel really good one year in that my plan is working, that we put together. People are getting excited. Customers are feeling better,” he said.
However, the deliveries comparison with Airbus isn’t precisely an even match. Boeing has finally cleared its inventory of 737 MAXes, a six-year task from when the MAX was grounded for 21 months beginning in March 2019 and extending through the extended recovery period of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Airbus, meanwhile, has about 60 A320neo family airplanes in storage awaiting engines from CFM International and Pratt & Whitney. Based on production rates, Airbus has a 60% share vs Boeing’s 40%.
How’s the next new aircraft produced? Part 4. Boeing: new aircraft production
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By the Leeham News Team
Sept. 15, 2025, © Leeham News: In the fourth part of our article series about the Production of the next new aircraft, we look at what changes Boeing needs to do to produce the next new aircraft we described in our series What’s the next new aircraft.
Boeing 737s awaiting delivery, November 2022. Credit: Leeham News.
The new small widebody described in the series and a replacement for the 737 MAX will be an all-composite aircraft. For these products, new, cheaper, and faster composite production technology is needed.
The present widebody composite methods are not made for high-rate, low-cost aircraft, as Boeing found out lately with the NMA, which was canceled, not least because of the high-cost composite methods used.
How’s the next new aircraft produced? Part 3. Boeing: Improving the present.
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By the Leeham News Team
Sept. 11, 2025, © Leeham News: In the third part of our article series about the Production of the next new aircraft, we look at where Boeing is with the present production and how this can develop in preparation for a next-generation aircraft.
Several of Boeing’s production sites have their roots in World War II factories making Bombers for the war effort. Each has built new production lines and modernized them over time.
Figure 1. Boeing 737 factory in Renton (WA). Credit: Boeing.
Boeing has fallen well behind Airbus in commercial aircraft narrowbody sales over the last decade. Poor strategic and tactical decisions, emphasis on shareholder value vs product strategy, poor execution on new commercial, defense, and space programs, and a series of safety crises with its 737 and 787 programs also took tolls, according to many observers, including Richard Aboulafia and Kevin Michaels of Aerodynamic Advisory, and aerospace analyst Ron Epstein of Bank of America.
Boeing has less than 40% market share in the dominant single aisle market, more than $50bn in debt, it’s losing money, and has an aging product line.
For Boeing, a drastic makeover in its aircraft programs, from concept to design to production, is key to its financial and market turnaround.
The Rise and Fall of Boeing, And The Way Back
By Scott Hamilton
Sept. 10, 2025, © Leeham News: The sequel to my book Air Wars, The Global Combat Between Airbus and Boeing, published today on Amazon (US and selected international markets, including France, the UK, Germany, Japan and elsewhere).
The Rise and Fall of Boeing And The Way Back recounts Boeing’s rise to dominance over the piston airliner era of Douglas Aircraft Co. and Lockheed as the modern jet age began in 1958. Boeing captured more than 60% of the market against Douglas and its corporate successor, the McDonnell Douglas Corp. (MDC). Europe’s upstart, Airbus Industries overtook MDC and in the 2000 decade it passed Boeing to become the Number 1 supplier in the world of commercial jetliners.
How’s the next new aircraft produced? Part 2. Advancing the State of the Art
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By the Leeham News Team
Sept. 8, 2025, © Leeham News: In the second part of our article series about the Production of the next new aircraft, we look at the latest trends around advancing the state of the art for aircraft production.
Figure 1. The next new airplane, whether from Airbus, Boeing, Embraer or another company, will use AI and other new technologies. Credit: Leeham Co.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is going to replace human beings, or so claims Elon Musk.
Digital design and digital twin factories are going to dramatically lower costs, speed construction, and improve production efficiency. At least that’s what proponents claim.
While there might be a lot of truth in these claims, it’s not the whole story.
But the drive toward reindustrialization, as one industry consultant calls it, may be a drive that is too theoretical and could overlook the fact that production is done and controlled by humans.
One aerospace company is putting the brakes on the theoretical spin and focusing on the road to higher efficiency by slowing down this transformation in favor of employee training and motivation to emphasize safety over cost-cutting and automation to gain efficiency.
Striking a balance between the reindustrialization theoretical gains and the focus on the human in the system will be tricky. LNA had spent months interviewing companies, consultants, current and former employees of key companies, and researching public-domain information to paint a picture of how production will be transformed in the coming years.
We begin the advancement of the state-of-the-art part of the series with an interview LNA did at the Paris Air Show with the consulting firm Accenture.
How’s the next new aircraft produced? Part 1. The starting point.
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By the Leeham News Team
Sept. 4, 2025, © Leeham News: The coming decade is likely to see announcements of new airplanes from Airbus and Boeing. If Embraer decides to move up into the mainline sector, a new airplane from the Brazilian manufacturer should also be announced in the next few years.
This means the clock is ticking toward program launches anywhere between 2027 and 2030, depending on progress from GE Aerospace, Pratt & Whitney and Rolls-Royce in developing new engines.
New airplane concept: The Boeing New Midmarket Airplane, c. 2019. Credit: Leeham News.
For the airframe manufacturers, there are important steps before a new program can be launched. One is how the aircraft shall be developed. We wrote about it in our series “What’s the Next New Aircraft?”. But equally important is, how shall the next new aircraft be produced? It’s what this seven part series is about.
Since June, LNA has published a series of articles about new airplanes, new technologies, new design and new production processes that must be sorted before any of the OEMs move forward. Across the seven parts of this series, we identify flaws and challenges at both Airbus and Boeing, with lessons to be learned as both airframers reshape their approach for future manufacturing.
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We call this series “How’s the next new aircraft produced?”. We start by going through where the major OEMs are with their legacy production.