Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Leeham News and Analysis
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- Better transparency needed on Boeing’s 1Q earnings call April 22, 2024
- Bjorn’s Corner: New engine development. Part 4. Propulsive efficiency April 19, 2024
Pontifications: By accident of timing, convergence of events, Mitsubishi is now well positioned to become major RJ player
May 13, 2019, © Leeham News: The regional jetliner industry is on the cusp of a major shift.
Bombardier is exiting commercial aviation. The company already is under contract to sell the Q400. It’s CRJ program is for sale, or lacking any, inevitably headed for termination.
Embraer agreed to spin off its Commercial Aviation division into a new joint venture with Boeing. Its E-175 E2, designed with changes to the US Scope Clause in mind, is too heavy to comply with contract restrictions. The predecessor, the E-175 E1, is Scope-compliant but it also is aging technology.
Neither the Sukhoi SSJ100 nor the COMAC ARJ-21 are serious competitors.
Mitsubishi, beset by five of delays that pushed its MRJ90 seven years behind schedule, has been dismissed by most as too little, too late, too heavy and not Scope compliant.
Yet MITAC, as Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp is known, has quietly reworked the MRJ into a Scope-compliant “concept” aircraft that will be revealed at the Paris Air Show next month.
Officials said the aircraft, the name for which hasn’t yet been revealed, will be the only new generation, Scope-compliant aircraft, positioning Mitsubishi to become a key player in the regional aircraft industry.
The decline and fall of Bombardier
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Introduction
May 6, 2019, © Leeham News: Bombardier was once the leader in providing regional airliners to the industry.
Today, it’s all but exited the industry.
With the announcement that its Belfast manufacturing facility and a smaller one in Morocco are for sale, only the CRJ regional airliner remains.
Expectations are that that, too, will be gone before too long. Bombardier has been weighing its “strategic options” of the CRJ since last year, when it agreed to sell the Q400 turboprop to Canada’s Viking Air. This deal is to close mid-year.
Here’s a look back how Bombardier went from a leader to an also-ran.
Summary
- Bombardier pioneered the regional jetliner and dominated the turboprop sector.
- Embraer surpassed the former and ATR the latter.
- A bold move to jump into the lower end of the market dominated by Airbus and Boeing, coupled with bad management and over-extending the balance sheet, nearly bankrupted the company.
Bjorn’s Corner: Bombardier selling off unique CSeries technology
By Bjorn Fehrm
May 06, 2019, ©. Leeham News: Bombardier’s CEO, Alain Bellemare announced yesterday the company will streamline to a Train and Business jet company.
This means there is no longer place for a Commercial aircraft division nor its Aerostructures parts in Belfast and Morocco serving these aircraft.
Figure 1. The CSeries/A220 Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) wing. Source: Bombardier.
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Bombardier to sell Belfast wing factory, dumping key parts of profitable Aerostructures unit
May 2, 2019, © Leeham News: Bombardier today reported its first quarter earnings, which were lower than originally expected by analysts and previewed last week.
But the big news are plans to sell its Belfast, Northern Ireland, wing factory and its aerospace facility in Morocco.
The Belfast plant produces wings for the Airbus A220 (nee C Series). This plant and the Morocco facility were reorganized previously into an Aerostructures unit that has been profitable.
Bombardier now labels these plants as non-core to its business.
The CRJ program, which is for sale, has been put into a new Bombardier Aviation business unit that includes the business jets.
Bjorn’s Corner: Time to reassess the safety standards for our airliners
By Bjorn Fehrm
April 26, 2019, ©. Leeham News: In the wake of the 737 MAX crashes the standards to which Boeing and the FAA qualified and approved the 737 MAX MCAS function is questioned.
FAA has called the world’s aviation regulators to a meeting on the 23rd of May to discuss how the revised MCAS function will be approved. But it’s time to discuss more than how the updated MCAS shall pass.
Pontifications: Collins Aerospace resolved to compete for aftermarket services
By Scott Hamilton
April 22, 2019, © Leeham News: Moves by Airbus, Boeing and Embraer to increase their shares of aftermarket services are viewed by their own suppliers with a mix of trepidation or resolve, depending on who they are.
For Collins Aerospace, it’s resolve.
It’s also about become more efficient with advanced manufacturing of its parts supplied to the aerospace industry. This reduces costs, lead times and takes advantage of Collins’ own engineers and designs for value-added services to its customers.
I spoke with two officials from Collins at the Aviation Week MRO Americas conference in Atlanta April 9-11.
Delta Tech Ops 5-year goal to double revenues
#MROAM
Ed Bastian, Delta Air Lines CEO.
April 9, 2019, © Leeham News: Delta Air Lines has the third largest third-party MRO company in North America and aggressively seeks to grow, in sharp contrast to its competitors.
While American and United airlines have limited their own maintenance, repair and overhaul, let alone seek third party business, Delta Tech Ops is a business unit and profit center. Delta CEO Ed Bastian said today that Tech Ops will achieve $1bn in revenues this year and has a goal of $2bn within five years.
Bastian was the lead-off speaker at the Aviation Week MRO Americas conference in Atlanta this week.
Green aircraft builder may need infusion of greenbacks
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By Bryan Corliss
April 4, 2019, © Leeham News: While one Western Washington electric aircraft company is charging forward with battery-powered flight, another may be encountering headwinds.
Zunum, which has announced plans to put a hybrid-electric-powered aircraft into the air before the year’s end, may need a cash infusion if it’s to stick to that time line.
Unlike MagniX – which announced March 26 a deal with Vancouver’s Harbour Air to start putting electric motors into the airline’s existing fleet of seaplanes – Bothell-based Zunum is pursuing a clean-sheet aircraft design.
Summary
- Electric plane builder Zunum plans to fly hybrid test aircraft this year.
- The company says it plans to announce a manufacturing site — or maybe an airframing partner — in 2020.
- Reports say the company needs more investor cash to avoid schedule slips.
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Pontifications: Boeing NewCo exec, Slattery, faces challenges
By Scott Hamilton
- Our Monday paywall will appear at 6am Tuesday, PDT.
March 25, 2019, © Leeham News: Boeing last week announced the executive leadership for the joint venture with Embraer, the as-yet unnamed company that is generically called NewCo.
Separately, Embraer announced the departure at the end of next month of Embraer’s parent CEO, Paulo Cesar, a move that was expected.
Cesar was with Embraer for 22 years in various positions. We was president and CEO of EMB’s Commercial Aviation division and launched the E2 program in 2013.
Cutting A220 costs is an ‘ongoing exercise’ for Airbus
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Introduction
March 14, 2019, © Leeham News: Airbus’ effort to slash supply costs for A220 production is “an ongoing exercise at this point,” Joe Marcheschi, Airbus’ head of procurement in North America, told LNA in an interview last month.
The A220-300 for JetBlue will be assembled at the Airbus plant in Mobile (AL). Airbus rendering.
“There are no specific, let’s say, achievements yet,” he said. “We are working closely with our supply chain.”
It takes time to squeeze cost out of the supply chain, he said. “We only took over July 1. That’s when we got full knowledge of the existing contracts.”
In January, Philippe Balducchi, head of the Airbus-led venture overseeing production, told journalists that the aerospace giant aims to realize “significant double-digit” percentage cost reduction. He indicated that most of the savings likely would come from the supply chain, according to news reports.
“Look, the airplane is absolutely fantastic—it just costs a lot of money,” Marcheschi said. “Now, we have to find a way to reduce the cost.”
Summary
- Airbus is working to slash supply chain costs on A220 program, but no announcements yet.
- The European plane maker wants to offer commercial MRO services in North America.