Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Leeham News and Analysis
- Boeing wants to remarket China’s airplanes. It’s costly and time consuming. April 28, 2025
- Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 19. April 25, 2025
- How good is the C929? Part 2. April 24, 2025
- Boeing First Quarter Results Update: China is 10% of the backlog, with 500 in “Unidentified” April 24, 2025
- Boeing First Quarter Results: Tariffs, Return flights, $10.55bn asset sale April 23, 2025
Boeing’s approach in creating the passenger experience
- The Puget Sound Journal has this story from a Boeing briefing last week detailing how Boeing will try and replicate at least some of the 787 cabin features into the forthcoming 777X.
- In what could be one of the smartest advances in aircraft seating, this design could end the elbow wars.
- Etihad Airlines created “apartments” for its first class section on the Airbus A380.
Passenger experience continues to become more and more of a focus for the Original Equipment Manufacturers, who try to create an atmosphere that’s appealing even as airlines cram more and more seats into airplanes to gain revenue in an environment where ancillary fees often mean the difference between profit and loss.
Cabin ambiance for mainline, and especially intercontinental, jets is a battle that hasn’t gotten much attention until the advent of the Boeing 787. The creation of the Boeing 747, of course, provided unprecedented space and ambiance and the “wide-body” was followed quickly by the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 and Lockheed L-1011. Creating the wide-body look for the single aisle airplanes followed, with improvements subsequently in overhead bins and the look of the ceiling. But it wasn’t until the 787 that there was a dramatic change in the cabin interior look and feel. Boeing expanded this look to the 747-8 and the 737.
Logical conclusions: Airbus wide-body decisions
A330 programme. The long range programme presents no new challenges. However, managing the order book beyond 2016 becomes more challenging due to competition from A350 XWB and Boeing 787.
—From the Airbus Group 2013 Annual Report
We have written previously that Airbus faced a production gap, a major drop in backlog orders from 2016, with no orders at all from 2020 (excluding the 27 orders placed in March by China, for which we don’t currently have delivery data yet). Back on December 29, we noted that the prospect of the A330neo was gaining traction–and it’s even more so today.
Market Intelligence from multiple sources indicate that Airbus will announce at the Farnborough Air Show that it will proceed with re-engining the A330 into a new engine option configuration, including sharklets similar to that on the A320 family.
This will give a needed boost to the A330 line. There have been a dearth of orders, in part, no doubt, to the industry waiting to see whether Airbus will proceed with the A330neo. Recall that there had been a drop in A320 family orders in the run-up to the launch of the A320neo.
We have now completed a comprehensive study about the business case for the A330neo and how competitive it would be vs. the Boeing 787-8 and -9, and what price Airbus has to offer to help make the airplane competitive. This proprietary study is based on our proprietary economic modeling which, along with our own Market analysis, concludes that there is a business case to proceed with the A330neo. We concurrently believe Airbus will discontinue offering the A350-800, although this announcement may not come for some time. Among the reasons: Hawaiian Airlines wants the A350-800 as offering the passenger capacity and the range it desires. The A350-900 is too big, officials currently believe. But an A330-300neo won’t offer the range Hawaiian wants (it will fall about 1,500nm short, according to our estimates). If Airbus discontinues the A350-800, Hawaiian may well re-issue its Request for Proposals that will give Boeing a shot at getting the 787-9 into Hawaiian. Given the planned production boost to the 787 line (12/mo in 2016, 14/m0 in 2018 or 2019), Boeing now has delivery slots to offer to match that of the A350-800 schedule.
But we don’t think Airbus is done once it launches the A330neo. We believe Airbus continues to look at the prospect of re-engining the A380, c.2020, given additional impetus from the large customer for the A380, Tim Clark of Emirates Airlines. This article in The Wall Street Journal is the latest on this topic.
Odds and Ends: Yields vs growth; 757RS continued; 787 wind tests; airport vs environment
Yields vs growth: AirAsiaX, the long-haul, low cost unit of AirAsia Group, faces that perpetual problem: yields vs growth. Reuters has this story about the conundrum of sacrificing profits now for a long-term growth strategy. It’s always a risky bet. AirAsiaX relies on the Airbus A330 today and has the A350 on order.
757RS, continued: Aeroturbopower has now weighed in on the Boeing 757 replacement discussion.
787 wind tests: We’ve all seen cross-wind landing videos, but where does Boeing go to test landing in high wind conditions for its new 787-9? Lubbock (TX), of all places. This local TV report explains why but unfortunately the TV station muffed showing the landing itself.
Airport vs environment: It’s an age-old story, but this one has a bit of a different twist. The New York Times reports about the conflict between the Westchester County (White Plaines) Airport in New York vs trees on an adjacent property.
Passenger Experience: As nice as it is to have lie-flat seats in Business Class (we haven’t had the pleasure of First Class), this photo from the Boeing Stratocruiser days makes even today’s upper-grade passenger experience seem like it falls short.
757 replacement not in the cards any time soon
The unexpected attention earlier this month on the prospect of a Boeing 757 replacement, possibly in the form of a 777X-style concept of composite wings and wingbox, new engines and some system upgrades, brings into focus the Boeing 737-9 and the Airbus A321neo.
- Aspire Aviation has its analysis of the next New Small Airplane here.
Boeing quickly denied, in an unusually firm manner, that it was planning on a “757 MAX” and reiterated it doesn’t currently plan to bring another new airplane to market until the middle of the next decade. We’ve previously reported that based on our information, Boeing will wait until the 777X enters flight testing, estimated for 2018, before launching a new family of airplanes to replace the 757 and 737 MAX—with entry-into-service of the 757 replacement around 2025 and the MAX replacement about two years later.
Odds and Ends: Airbus ponders PIPs for A320neo, says AvWeek; Boeing moves more jobs; MH370 search
A320neo Plus: Airbus is pondering a Performance Improvement Package (PIP) for the A320neo family even before the airplane enters service, according to Aviation Week. The improvements would include an upgraded interior and several systems, designed at providing more carry-on cargo space, more seats and better economy. This fits with a desire to focus on product improvements rather than launching another new airplane program. The prospect of launching the much-discussed A330neo is also referenced in the AvWeek article.
Boeing moves more jobs: The Seattle Times reports that Boeing is moving more jobs out of Seattle, this time also to Southern California. This time these are defense jobs. Boeing has been migrating defense jobs out of Seattle for many years.
Separately, Boeing named its Suppliers of the Year for 2013. These companies are profiled in short videos here.
MH370 search: The Wall Street Journal has a good update of the search for Malaysian Airlines MH370 using the Bluefin 21 unmanned submarine.
Airline food: Here’s an irreverent look at why airline food is bad.
Odds and Ends: No to 757 MAX; Fallout from Boeing job transfer; 8,000th 737; Fire sale pricing on 777LR
No to 757 MAX: Steve Wilhelm of the Puget Sound Business Journal writes that Boeing has no plans to build a 757 MAX. This refutes the Motley Fool article we linked Tuesday. Then yesterday a different Fool write wrote why Boeing won’t build a 757 MAX. That may be, but as we wrote we had heard rumblings that Boeing was at least talking to the market about the prospect of such an airplane. But this could be nothing more than what we term, “Boeing being Boeing” exploring everything.
Fallout on engineer shift: The Seattle Times wrote that the fallout over Boeing’s plan to shift another 1,000 engineering jobs out of the Puget Sound area is pretty bad among the local work force. The morale at Boeing, The Times writes, is bad among its white collar engineers and technicians. We’re also told the IAM 751 membership continues to have poor morale in the wake of the Jan. 3 contract vote related to the 777X, with a major retirement expected among workers just in advance of the 2016 switchover to the 401(k) style pension plan. There seems to be a growing belief Boeing may face a workforce shortage just at a time when it’s ramping up production the following year on the 737NG, preparing production for the 737 MAX, in the early stages of production for the 777X and ramping up production again for the 787 as it prepares to introduce the 787-10 in 2018–as well as the KC-46A production ramp up and perhaps on the P-8A Poseidon.
And then there is the continued overhang of the potential NLRB action related to the 751 vote. Although a long shot, what happens if the NLRB requires a new vote and this time it fails? Boeing is already committed to building the 777X in Seattle: ground has been broken and the timeline too late to go elsewhere. Bonuses have been paid out. This could become a real mess.
8,000th 737: On the plus side, Boeing delivered its 8,000th 737, to United Airlines this week. It’s quite the accomplishment.
Fire sale pricing on 777-200LR: Air India, a financial basket case, plans to sell three more Boeing 777-200LRs, apparently for whatever it can get, in order to raise cash. It previously sold five 5-year old -200LRs for $335m–an average of a mere $67m each. According to the appraisal firm Collateral Verifications, a five year old -200LR should have a current market value of about $98m.
Inmarsat to offer free tracking: Inmarsat, the satellite company that proved key to tracking Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, will offer free tracking service, The Wall Street Journal writes.