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
Pontifications: The Queen is Dead. Long live the Queen.
By Scott Hamilton
Dec. 12, 2022, © Leeham News: The 1,574th Boeing 747 rolled off the production line last Tuesday. The last one, after 53 years of continuous production. The iconic aircraft was known as the Queen of the Skies.
The larger A380 didn’t replace the 747. McDonnell Douglas’s DC-10 and MD-11 didn’t replace it. The Lockheed L-1011 didn’t replace it. Neither did Boeing’s own 777-300ER. And neither will the 777X. The 777-X does not replace the 747—it succeeds the 747. I don’t think that anyone will characterize the 777X as “the Queen of the Skies.” The X looks like any other airplane. The 747 look is unique (a well-worn, overused word that in this case applies) and iconic. It has a nose door. The 777XF does not.
The Queen is Dead. Long live the Queen.
The last Boeing 747 to be built rolled off the Everett factory line Dec. 6, 2022. Line No. 1574 is for Atlas Air. After painting, a decal of legendary engineer Joe Sutter, the father of the 747, will be applied to the starboard side. Photo credit: Leeham News.
As it turns out, there was a debate within Boeing as far back as 2004 about whether to cancel the 747 program then. The 777-300ER was just entering service. There was a recognition within Boeing that the -300ER was the beginning of the end for the 747.
I tell this story in my book, Air Wars, The Global Combat Between Airbus and Boeing. Also in the book is the story about how Boeing tried to launch the 747-500 and 747-600, without success. Airbus won this competition, launching the A380 with Singapore Airlines and in the process killing the 747 derivatives. But Phil Condit, then the CEO of Boeing, wasn’t upset. Something else was in the hopper.
Below is a synopsis of these stories, excerpted from Air Wars.
HOTR: Tuesday’s Boeing announcement may give indication of A350 future at United
By the Leeham News Team
Dec. 9, 2022, © Leeham News: The engine selection on a big Boeing 787 to be announced Tuesday may be the most definitive signal yet of what United Airlines will do with its oft-deferred Airbus A350 order.
United is considered certain at some point to cancel its orders for 45 A350s. This order has been deferred several times. The new order to be announced Tuesday for up to 100 or more Boeing 787s adds to the more than 60 already in the fleet. United clearly doesn’t need a large fleet of 787s and a smaller fleet of A350s.
But canceling the Airbus order is not without some cost. It’s believed that penalties to Airbus are manageable. These also may be mitigated by an order for A321neos. This can solve Airbus’s concerns. But it does nothing for Rolls-Royce, which provides the engines for the A350s.
Rolls is not an engine supplier for the A321neo. United’s swapping the A350 for the A321 means Rolls loses that future business. What’s the mitigation for Rolls?
United may split the engine order for the 787 between incumbent GE Aerospace and Rolls. If the engine selection is announced Tuesday and the order is split, this will be the clearest indication yet that the A350 order will be history. United and Boeing scheduled a press conference at the 787 production and assembly plant in Charleston (SC).
HOTR: Big airplane orders race toward year end
Dec. 8, 2022, © Leeham News: A year-end aircraft order rush will benefit Airbus and Boeing, according to what LNA is hearing.
Air India
Airbus appears in line to win 50-100 A350 orders from Air India. Boeing appears in line to win an order from the carrier for 100 new-build 737 MAXes and—get this—40 MAXes that were built for China and which have been in storage since 2019. As previously reported, there were about 140 MAXes built for the Chinese. Boeing said in September it couldn’t wait any longer for China to reopen the domestic market to Boeing for the MAXes. Remarketing the airplanes began then.
The Boeing order could be signed as early as this week or next. The Airbus deal is expected by year-end.
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia is expected to agree to an order for around 50 A350s. The new airline, RIA, which will compete with the current flag carrier, Saudi, is expected to be the prime beneficiary. Airbus hopes to conclude the deal by year’s end if not earlier.
Boeing is not in line for an order this year, according to what HOTR hears. But negotiations begin soon.
The Economics of the 767 and A330 at Seven and Eight abreast
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By Bjorn Fehrm
Introduction
Dec. 8, 2022, © Leeham News: In a previous article, we started speculating what an NMA type of aircraft would look like based on a Boeing 767 cross-section. An airliner’s cross-section decides the design of a large number of parts in an airplane.
In essence, a fuselage is a tube with a constant cross-section where the constant parts are repeated framewise to form the fuselage. It’s finished with a tapering forward cockpit and a rear tapering empennage.
We now look at what could have been a passenger version of an NMA that would have used the Boeing 767 cross-section with adaptations. To understand its economic impact, we make a comparison where we take a standard 767-300ER, then modify it to an NMA type fuselage and compare it to the competition in the size class, the A330-200 and -800.
As before, we do this by flying the world’s busiest long-haul route, London Heathrow, to New York JFK.
Summary
- An NMA based on an improved 767 fuselage cross-section would have been a very competitive airliner
- I would be the ideal replacement for the Boeing 757, 767, and 787-8.
HOTR: United likely can cancel A350 order with little penalty
By the Leeham News Team
Dec. 5, 2022, © Leeham News: United Airlines appears on the cusp of ordering as many as 100 Boeing 787s, multiple news outlets report. Airbus hopes to sell more A350s to United to supplement the 45 already on order.
But these 45 A350-900s are an order that has been viewed as iffy since United merged with Continental Airlines. Although ostensibly United was the surviving carrier, in reality, Continental was the survivor. The latter’s management displaced United’s old management. The livery retained was Continental’s.
The A350 order was placed by the old United management. The new executives added to the United order, but Continental had been an exclusive buyer of Boeing aircraft and executives were predisposed toward Boeing. UAL now has 120 Airbus A321XLRs on order. But this came after Boeing couldn’t decide whether to launch the New Midmarket Airplane after years of dithering. With a large fleet of Boeing 757s aging and in need of eventual replacement, United could no longer wait for Boeing to make a decision.
United already has a large fleet of 787s. Adding the A350s will provide an extra range that the 787s don’t have. But how many routes need the extra range to justify another fleet type?
LNA believes that United can cancel the orders for 45 A350s at little cost. The deposits may easily be applied to orders for more A321s, but cancellation penalties are believed to be de minimis. Based on 2018 list prices—the last ones published by Airbus—United could get about 110 more A321s in exchange for the A350s. (The number is probably a little less since the XLRs are more expensive than the A321neo “standard;” the list price makes no distinction between the sub-types.)
LNA expects United to cancel the A350s sooner than later and add to the A321 order.
Regulators need to understand realities, complexities of achieving ecoAviation goals
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Now open to all readers.
By Scott Hamilton
Dec. 5, 2022, © Leeham News: Battery power. Hybrid-battery. Hydrogen. Hydrogen-hybrid. Sustainable Aviation Fuel.
Boeing’s 777 ecoDemonstrator. Boeing launched the ecoD program 10 years ago. Credit: Boeing.
Whatever the path chosen by the hundreds of companies seeking greener commercial aviation, government regulations and tax breaks are going to be a part of the solutions.
The airline industry has a goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. There are milestone targets between now and then. But will governments fully understand what’s technologically achievable in considering regulations or tax breaks? Will they fully understand which options are the best environmental solution?
Boeing developed an analytical tool called Cascade to help governments and regulators understand these issues. Importantly, Cascade takes into account the total life cycle factors for environmentally-friendly options.
The model analyzes carbon emissions for airplane fleet renewal, renewable energy sources such as sustainable fuel, hydrogen, electric propulsion, operational efficiency improvements, and advanced technologies. At the moment, Cascade remains in Beta testing internally. LNA has not had the opportunity to play with it.
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“We’ve got to be honest about where we are on the life cycle emissions,” says Chris Raymond, the chief sustainability officer for The Boeing Co. “We’ve got to have a way to take that into account. We were just trying to start to illustrate to people that the energy generation upstream of whatever’s going to power the airplane is all part of the calculus that we have to think about. That’s really why we invented Cascade.”
Pontifications: A lost decade for new airplanes
By Scott Hamilton
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Dec. 5, 2022, © Leeham News: In September 2020, LNA wrote that commercial aviation was facing a “lost decade.”
The impetus for this prediction was the COVID-19 pandemic crisis.
“Commercial aviation is facing a lost decade due to COVID,” we wrote. “Yes, most forecasts target 2024-2025 as returning to 2019 passenger traffic and aircraft production levels. However, LNA in July published its own analysis indicating full recovery may not occur until 2028.”
Nobody predicted that effective vaccines would emerge as quickly as they did. Drug makers in the US and Europe moved heaven and earth to produce vaccines to fight COVID-19. These have been, by and large, extremely effective. (I’ve had two shots and three boosters and have not caught COVID, despite being at one major conference with 13,000 people.)
China created its own vaccine, which failed to stem the tide there. President Xi quickly adopted total lockdowns at the first sign of outbreaks. Despite this, China is now setting records for new infections. Commercial aviation recovery there remains underperforming. China’s performance illustrates the underlying reasoning we had in concluding commercial aviation was facing a lost decade.
This sector still faces a lost decade, though for some fundamentally different reasons.
Green aviation pressure applied to banks, oil companies, too
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By Scott Hamilton
Dec. 1, 2022, © Leeham News: Pressure from environmentalists is prompting the aviation industry to move toward sustainable fuels.
But the pressure is not just on aviation. It’s also on bankers who finance airplanes and aerospace companies. These firms must show their shareholders, stakeholders and special interest groups that they are taking sustainability into account as they finance their customers.
The pressure is on oil companies, though many believe Big Oil isn’t really interested in cutting back its core business in favor of alternative energy.
In an interview with LNA, Chris Raymond, the chief sustainability officer for The Boeing Co., is frank about the challenges of meeting commercial aviation’s goal of achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050. But he’s optimistic that the industry is on the right path.
It’s a path that’s been promoted before, with little success. In the first decade of the 21st century, the industry talked big but little activity occurred. In 2011, Jim Albaugh, then the CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, predicted that 10% of fuel by 2020 would be Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF). The reality was that SAF accounted for 0.001% of the fuel.
Credit: Boeing.
Today, there are demonstration flights, including passenger-carrying flights, that used 50% SAF.
Boeing faces exodus of senior engineers in tight market for talent
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By Bryan Corliss
Nov. 28, 2022, © Leeham News: Boeing’s engineering corps could become further depleted within the next few days, as union-represented engineers and technical workers at the company’s Puget Sound plants face a Wednesday deadline on filing their retirement paperwork.
If they don’t leave now, individuals could face retirement benefit losses in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The potential loss of several hundred of Boeing’s most experienced engineers comes at a time when the company is scraping together engineering teams to tackle production problems in Charleston, and in the midst of an industry-wide shortage of engineering talent.
Summary
- Aggressive hiring sparks Brazilian lawsuit
- Engineers face Wednesday deadline
- All aerospace companies need engineers
- Tech industry layoffs won’t help
Read more
The Boeing 767 Cross Section, Part 1
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By Vincent Valery
Introduction
Nov. 24, 2022, © Leeham News: Last week, we saw the impact of using a nine-abreast economy class seating configuration on the Airbus A330neo economic performance against the Boeing 787-9. The passenger comfort was similar to the A350 NPS in a 10-abreast cabin.
NMA Freighter. Credit: Leeham Company LLC
We now turn our attention to another aircraft family, the Boeing 767. Until a few weeks ago, Boeing’s product development team worked on a 767-sized airplane. The program would start with a freighter, the NMA-F, followed by the passenger variant.
However, comments from Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun at the Boeing annual investor conference indicated there are no plans to launch such a program. Funding for such a program was reduced.
Despite Boeing’s announcement, we still thought it relevant to look at the 767 cross-section with a mindset of what could have been.
Summary
- No adequate OEM offering in the upper mid-market segment;
- The 767 cabin shoulder width;
- Comparing mid-sized aircraft capacity;
- A dwindling 767 freighter conversion stock.