Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Leeham News and Analysis
- Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 20. May 2, 2025
- Supplier Howmet exceeds expectations despite tariffs May 1, 2025
- Airbus 1Q2025 results: So far, so good, but US tariffs make future results unpredictable May 1, 2025
- Does an Airbus A220-500 need a new wing and engines? May 1, 2025
- Teamsters, Boeing have a new contract April 29, 2025
Enhancing the Dreamliner, Part 7: The optimum range for the 787-10
Subscription Required
By Bjorn Fehrm
Introduction
November 19, 2020, © Leeham News: Last week, we compared the economics of the 787-10 to the 787-9 on the San Francisco to Sydney route.
We could see this 6,500nm route does not suit the 787-10, even though it’s within the aircraft’s range capability. The 787-9 is the better alternative.
We now compare the aircraft on the 4,500nmm San Francisco to Tokyo route, a distance that should suit the 787-10 better.
Summary
- The 787-10 can fly routes of up to 6,500nm, but its payload capability gets compromised.
- You can fill the cabin to a reasonable load factor but must leave all cargo behind. In a high yield cargo market, this is not a profitable proposition.
- When the routes are below 5,000nm, the 787-10 works better. Now the large capacity can be utilized both for passengers and cargo. If it can be filled it’s now the lowest cost Dreamliner.
Boeing responds to FAA recertification of the 737 MAX
- Coverage of recertification of the Boeing 737 MAX continues with the next post.
Nov. 18, 2020: Boeing issued the following statements in response to the US Federal Aviation Administration recertifying the 737 MAX.
Breaking News: FAA recertifies 737 MAX–continuing coverage
- Coverage continues in the next post.
Nov. 18, 2020, (c) Leeham News: The US Federal Aviation Administration today recertified the Boeing 737 MAX, ending a 20-month grounding.
Underlying photo: Source, Boeing.
Recertification of the airplane will follow by Transport Canada and Europe’s EASA, probably this month.
FAA recertifies Boeing 737 MAX
- Continuing coverage in next post
By Bjorn Fehrm
November 18, 2020, ©. Leeham News: The FAA has declared the Boeing 737 MAX 8 and 9 safe to fly after a 20 months grounding. On March 10, 2019, the Ethiopian Air ET302 crashed after Boeing’s pitch augmentation software MCAS triggered erroneously and caused the aircraft to crash. This accident followed a similar accident of Lion Air JT610 on October 29, 2018.
Ethiopia grounded the MAX on the day, China the day after, and the FAA on March 13. The 737 MAX has been grounded worldwide since the FAA grounding.
It has been a gruesome 20 months for Boeing, where it’s gone from denial of guilt to a full acceptance of responsibility and a complete change of attitude. With changes to the MAX verified by FAA, EASA, Transport Canada, and Brazil’s ANAC, it’s now ready to fly again.
We will cover the return to flight of the 737 MAX in several articles, the first dealing with the question: Is the 737 MAX safe to fly?
Below we go through what went wrong and why this chain of events will not happen again on an updated 737 MAX.
Podcast: 10 Minutes About the 737 MAX Return to Service
Nov. 18, 2020, © Leeham News: LNA today launches a new feature, a periodic podcast about key issues of the moment.
Called “10 Minutes About,” the podcast is—as the title says—10 minutes about the issue selected. This time frame is short, to the point and doesn’t take too much time from the listener.
Today’s launch podcast is 10 Minutes About the 737 MAX Return to Service. The US Federal Aviation Administration today recertified the MAX.
Boeing, unions need reset: analysis
Subscription Required
By the Leeham News Team
Analysis
Introduction
Nov. 16, 2020, © Leeham News: Boeing is at a defining moment, says John Holden, the president of IAM 751. This is the labor union that assembles Boeing’s airplanes in Washington State.
The Seattle Times wrote that “Boeing must realign for better days“.
Neither said anything that hasn’t been said before, some of them repeatedly.
There is a new twist to it this time. Boeing is seriously bleeding money. It is making changes for survival and paying a horrible price as it loses talent that takes years to develop. There are many losers here: Boeing, Washington State, Snohomish, King and Pierce counties, Everett, Renton and all the communities in the Washington Aerospace heartland. There are no winners.
But for all the points identified, few offer solutions. What should a realignment include? What could it look like?
Over a series of articles, LNA will examine some possible solutions.
The first is Labor, starting with the IAM 751.
Summary
- Long, tortured relationship.
- Strong union state.
- “Expensive labor.”
- Is there a “value” premium?
Pontifications: EU tariffs on Boeing airplanes in effect; ~60 at risk
Nov. 16, 2020, © Leeham News: The European Union implemented tariffs Nov. 9 on Boeing and other US products in retaliation for the Trump Administration tariffs on Airbus and EU products.
By Scott Hamilton
This is the latest in the 16-year trade battle between the US and Europe over subsidies and tax breaks found to be illegal under World Trade Organization rules.
The US was authorized last year to impose tariffs on Airbus and other EU products. The Trump Administration initially imposed a 10% tariff on imported Airbus aircraft. A320/321s assembled at Airbus’ Mobile (AL) plant were exempt, even though major components were imported.
Trump increased the tariffs to 15% in March, just as the COVID-19 pandemic erupted worldwide. As a result, few Airbus airplanes were delivered into the US since then.
HOTR: New workforce newsletter; the return of Airchives
By the Leeham News Team
Nov. 12, 2020, © Leeham News: A new on-line newsletter, Future Aviation/Aerospace Workforce News, was launched last week 
focusing on industry regulatory, corporate, training, recruitment and retention challenges.
Created by Kathryn Creedy, a decades-long aviation writer and a contributor to LNA, the newsletter tackles workforce issues that long have received superficial coverage.
Boeing, for as long as can be remembered, issued annual forecasts about the need for pilots and mechanics over the next decade. As the workforce aged, the numbers grew in each category to hundreds of thousands.
The regional airline industry has long had challenges finding pilots.
Now, with COVID-19, cutbacks and bankruptcies upend the workforce.
Creedy’s new publication tackles these issues and more.
Enhancing the Dreamliner, Part 6: The 787-10 analyzed
Subscription Required
By Bjorn Fehrm
Introduction
November 12, 2020, © Leeham News: We look deeper at the 787-10, the stretched Dreamliner. The 787-10 was conceived as a “cut and stretch” of the 787-9, leaving as many parts untouched as possible. It carries 40 more passengers, but over a shorter distance.
It’s a high capacity complement to the other Dreamliners for airlines that needed more seats and could sacrifice about 1,500nm in payload-range performance. To check how well this works, we run the 787-10 against 787-9 on the San Francisco to Sydney route from last week and look at the data.
Summary
- The 787-10, as a “cut and stretch” development from the 787-9 comes with compromises on long routes.
- Our San Francisco to Sydney example shows these limitations in practice, even with the rumored Gross Weight stretch of the latest sales to Air New Zealand.
- The 787-10 comes into its own on shorter routes. We look at this next week.
HOTR: Don’t get over-optimistic on COVID-19 vaccine news
By the Leeham News team
Nov. 10, 2020, © Leeham News: Pfizer yesterday announced it’s on track to produce a COVID-19 vaccine that appears to be 90% effective in trials. The company is one of the world’s leading drug makers.
This is good news.
But before jumping to the old cliché about a light at the end of the tunnel, LNA’s Judson Rollins cautions, do the math.
“Read the fine print at the end of the press release,” Rollins says.
“Based on current projections, we expect to produce globally up to 50m vaccine doses in 2020 and up to 1.3b doses in 2021,” the press release says.
“It’s a two-dose vaccine, so divide by two to figure the number of people who could be immunized,” Rollins says. “Even if a second candidate is approved and can be produced in the same quantity next year, that means just 17% of the world’s population will be vaccinated. And that assumes everything goes according to plan.”
Rollins did an extensive analysis of how quickly global air traffic would return to normal. In his July 13 post, Rollins projected that traffic won’t fully recover until 2024 at the earliest or 2028 at the latest. It all depends on how quickly a vaccine was developed, how quickly it could be distributed globally and how quickly people had confidence in it.
“We’re in only the second or maybe third inning of a very long ball game,” Rollins says. “Vaccines kill off a virus by denying it bodies in which to reproduce. If you don’t innoculate enough of the population while immunity lasts, you’re back to square one.”