Asia’s LCCs: Aviation Week has this lengthy piece about Asia’s Low Cost Carriers. Update: Financial Times has this in-depth look at AirAsia vs Lion Air. (Free registration required.)
Fiscal Cliff Deal: The can was kicked down the road and Wells Fargo has this assessment on the affect on the Defense Department:
Sequestration Postponed. The bill passed does not prevent the sequestration procedure from automatically reducing defense spending by $500B over the next ten years, including $50-55B of potential reductions from FY2013. Instead, it postpones the deadline for an agreement from January 2, 2013, to March 1, 2013,–a two-month extension. At that time, the DoD will have three weeks to determine how the sequestration will be implemented, with the reductions kicking in on March 27, 2013, rather than on the same day under the original sequestration legislation. The lack of planning time for the sequestration contributed to the uncertainty of its impact, which the new legislation appears to resolve.
Boeing v Airbus: It certainly looks like Boeing sold more airplanes in 2012 than Airbus, but the annual Airbus press conference is January 17 and you never know what last minute orders John Leahy has up his sleeve. We doubt Boeing is celebrating just yet.
Desert Airplanes: It’s an old story for those of us who follow this sort of thing but the photos are always interesting. CNN has this story, with pictures, of where airplanes go to die.
We put two polls into the public domain this week, asking whether SPEEA and Boeing will reach an agreement next month; and if not, will SPEEA strike (a target date is Feb. 1).
The results are in: 61% expect no agreement when talks resume Jan. 9 and 57% expect SPEEA to strike. (These figures reflect results as of this writing. The data may change after this post because polling is still open.)
The percentages are a significant drop from the 96% vote that rejected the Boeing contract offer in October, but it should be noted there is no new offer on the table for SPEEA members to read and evaluate.
Additionally, this poll is of our readers and not specific to SPEEA.
Clearly the expectations are not good.
SPEEA’s executive director, Ray Goforth, is on record expecting talks to fail immediately when they resume because the gap between the union asks and the Boeing positions are so far apart. A strike vote will be solicited once talks break off.
Unlike the IAM 751, which requires a two-thirds affirmative vote for a strike, SPEEA requires only a simple majority.
Update, Dec. 21: A story on this topic:
Charleston Post-Courier: a much longer, in-depth piece than its original report linked below.
Original Post:
Boeing has agreed to buy a lot more land in Charleston (SC) to expand its plant there over time.
Illustrations via Charleston Post-Courier.
We believe Boeing is preparing to eventually locate new airplane programs in Charleston rather than Washington State. This would be the successor to the 737 MAX, potentially the 777X and we would not be at all surprised to see the 787-10 assembled in Charleston.
The contentious SPEEA negotiations aren’t going to help matters. We also believe Washington’s strict environmental laws are a factor, which seem on a track to get stricter with the move to clean up Puget Sound to save the fish.
Our estimated timeline is over the next 10-20 years (sooner if the 787-10 is placed in Charleston).
This is entirely our assessment–we can’t say we know anything about this. But the old adage is that if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck, then it’s a duck. And this sure quacks to us.
American Airlines’ Board of Directors will meet on Jan. 9 to decide whether to merge with US Airways, according to this report by Bloomberg News.
The outcome, of course, has ramifications beyond those employees of both airlines. These include, in no particular order:
Top 10 Stories in 2012: Here’s a piece we did for CNN International on the Top 10 stories, David Letterman style, for 2012.
Airbus A400M: Airbus claims it’s ready to go. First deliveries slated for next summer.
C919–orders, no deposits: How firm are the 380 “orders” for the COMAC C919? Good question. According to a Chinese media report via this Western news story, there are no deposits for the “orders.”
Washington State’s Signal to Boeing: Gov. Christine Gregoire, in her final budget (see leaves office next month), put $25m in for aerospace training and STEM education. The Puget Sound Business Journal explains the significance of this.
Update (already): Seems Mobile (AL) is put out we didn’t include the Airbus announcement of a production plant there in our Top 10. Over at CNN, a reader commented that the Delta Air Lines purchase of an oil refinery was worthy. Feel free to add your comments about what should have (or should not have) been included in this list.