Odds and Ends: Bombardier, Kingfisher, Southwest

CSeries: Blogger Airline Reporter has this post after touring the Bombardier CSeries mock-up. We’ve seen it before and came away with the same impressions. What caught our eye was this comment:

All the time , I hear people asking for wider seats, more room, etc. But really, what airline is going to take a Boeing 737 or Airbus A320 and go from six seats across to five? (hint: none)

No kidding. Not in this day-and-age where load factors are running at 80% or better and airlines still worry about making money in an uncertain age of oil prices. Some airlines now make their entire profits from fees.

Airline Reporter’s remarks further poke in pin in the balloon of the goofy proposal of a 1x3x1 Airbus interior proffered by a former Airbus employee.

That aside, Airline Reporter does a good job of synopsizing the CSeries design philosophy.

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Malev, Spanair shutdowns add to parked aircraft

Today’s shutdown of Hungary’s Malev Airlines and the recent cessation by Spain’s Spanair adds to the number of parked aircraft and will make it just a little bit more challenging to remarket Boeing 737s and Airbus A320s.

As we noted in a recent post, India’s Kingfisher Airlines is teetering as well.

Malev operated six 737-600s, seven -700s and five -800s. It has operated four Bombardier Q400s and two Embraer 120s.

There is virtually no demand for the -600s and even the -700s have been falling out of favor as fuel prices climb. The EMB-120s have little demand.

Spanair’s failure puts 10 Airbus A320s and five A321s on the market. These are equipped with V2500 engines. As we wrote last month, A320s with V2500s are a bit more challenging to remarket than those equipped with CFM56s.

 

Silly argument by jilted Kansas

Politicians in Kansas have asked for a review on national security grounds of the Boeing decision to close its defense operations in Wichita, according to this news report.

This is just silly.

Boeing has plenty of security clearances and secure facilities in Puget Sound, San Antonio and Oklahoma City, where the Wichita work is going.

This is a desperate move by Kansas.  The Secretary of the Air Force should reject this effort as a complete waste of everybody’s time.

Odds and Ends: 737 MAX development cost; another range boost for A330

737 MAX: We did this story last week on the development cost of the Boeing 737 MAX.

A330: Airbus is going to boost the range of the A330 to make it more closely match that of the Boeing 777 and 787, according to this story.

Fill ‘er up: Here’s a scary story about a goof in aerial refueling of a Boeing 707-based JSTARS.

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Norwegian Air splits order with Airbus, Boeing

In a surprise, Norwegian Air Shuttle split a large order between Airbus and Boeing for A320 and 737 families. The Airbus order is only for the NEO and 737 order is a mix of MAX and NGs.

We expected only the 737 order; we had previously reported NAS was one of the “commitments” for the MAX.

This represents the third all-Boeing customer Airbus has won for its NEO.

NEO deliveries will begin in 2016, equipped with the PW GTF. Engine selection for later deliveries remains open. The GTF enters service on NEO in 2015 and the NEO CFM Leap engine enters service a year later.

Boeing reports 2011 earnings, estimates for 2012: just 35-44 787 deliveries

Boeing reported its earnings for 2011 and its estimates for 2012, including delivery estimates for the 787–which were surprisingly low.

Boeing forecast 70-85 787/747 deliveries this year, with half (35-44) being 787s. This is will below Wall Street consensus, though David Strauss at UBS predicted 40. We find this a stunningly low number that doesn’t reflect well on either production ramp up or fixing the rework necessary for the more than three dozen 787s at Everett.

Boeing’s own Z24 production plan for this year had a production rate of 45 787s.

We are, as the Brits say, gobsmacked by this information. (Update, 0800 PST: In Q&A, McNerney says 787 deliveries affected by large number of change incorporation required.)

From the conference call:

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Understanding appraisers in aircraft values

There has been an active discussion in the comment section on the “Rate 35” post and the relative merits of appraisals and appraisers with respect to the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737NG.

We’ve been involved in the airline business since 1979 and from 1990, when we co-owned Commercial Aviation Report (CAR), have followed the appraisal business. Given the discussion in “comments,” we think a dedicated post is worthwhile.

CAR created the industry’s first commercial appraisal conference in 1990. ISTAT–the International Society of Transport Aircraft Traders–at that time was still largely a small, professional organization, far difference than what it is today.

CAR’s first conference brought together nearly every appraisal company then in existence in the US to compare and discuss appraisals of what was called Enhanced Equipment Trust Certificates (EETCs) and appraisals published by the firms.

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Punching through the hysteria about closing Boeing Wichita

Mike Mecham of Aviation Week has a thorough analysis of what’s behind the decision to close Boeing Wichita.

Contrast Mike’s story with this ridiculous analysis. It’s very, very rare that we call out someone else but this one is so far off the wall that we can’t help ourselves. (It should be noted Loren Thompson was paid by Boeing to do a report about the Airbus subsidies and the tanker competition.)

George Talbot of The Mobile Press-Register weighed in with this story.

Boeing envisions third parallel line for 737 Max

Here are the stories we did for FlightGlobal on Boeing’s hitting Rate 35 for the 737.

Boeing may assemble the re-engined 737 Max in the same facility as it builds the 737 NG family of aircraft in Renton, Washington.

Beverly Wyse, 737 programme vice-president and general manager, said a potential third line for the Max would be placed in Renton with the two existing lines by relocating engine, empennage and line work staging areas positioned between Line 1 and a mezzanine that runs the length of the building.

Commercial production at Renton is split between two lines in the 4-481 building. Line 1, the wider of the two lines, would likely play host to Line 3 for the 737 Max.

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Boeing celebrates going to “Rate 35” on 737

Boeing celebrated the transition to producing 35 737s per month, from 31.5, at a huge employee pep rally today (Jan. 10) at its Renton (WA) plant, where the assembly is done.

With the country-rock band Chance McKinney & Crosswire blasting away, the event was festooned with blue-and-white balloons, cupcakes with blue or white frosting, green T-shirts embossed with “Boeing 737 MAX” and a sometimes cheesy, scripted cheer-leading effect from employees, the event marked not only a milestone for the 737 but for Boeing Commercial Airplanes. No aircraft has been produced in such numbers by Boeing.

And more is to come. The production rate is to increase in 2013 to 38 per months and to 42 the following year.

Beverly Wyse, VP and GM of the 737 Program, told the 10,000 Renton employees that the rate could climb to 60 per month someday.

All this means more jobs for Renton and Puget Sound (the greater Seattle area). Renton will be adding 600-700 more jobs in the each of the next two years for the NG production rate increases, Wyse says. It is too early to know how many more jobs will come with a third line for MAX, which doesn’t have a first-flight time until 2016 and an entry-into-service in 4Q13.

Meanwhile, Boeing is processing through weekly orientation days 100-200 every Friday for Puget Sound employment, says Tommy Wilson, Business Relationship guru for IAM 751 at Renton.

We did two stories on the celebration for Flightglobal. Under our agreement with Flight, we have to wait 24 hours after Flight’s publication before we can post those here.

Separately, Aspire Aviation published this long piece, looking at the 787 program and ramp up.