Leeham News and Analysis
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Engine industry clamoring for road back
By Bjorn Fehrm
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Introduction
October 13, 2016, ©. Leeham Co: The airline engine industry is like a ticking bomb. Over the years, a business practice of selling the engines under manufacturing cost and planning to recover costs and make a profit on the aftermarket developed. This goes back decades.
The practice was fostered by fierce competition over the engine contracts for aircraft which offered alternative engines. The losses of the engine sales could be made up later by selling spare parts and services at high margins.
Figure 1. Trent 7000 from Rolls-Royce. Source: Rolls-Royce.
These “jam tomorrow” practices have several implications. The engine industry is now confronted with these and wonder how it could put itself in such a bind. How to handle these and what is the way back?
Summary:
- High competition in engine sales forced ultra high discounts for the up-front engine sale.
- Aftermarket schemes was created that should recover profits over spare parts and services.
- But these maintenance practices create all sorts of problems in the used engine market.
- The engine industry now wants to return to more normal business practices. But how do they find the way back?
Airbus, Boeing agree on NMA–for now
One concept of the middle of the market airplane.
Oct. 12, 2016, © Leeham Co.: It’s rare when Airbus and Boeing agree on product strategy, but officials of the two companies seemed in almost perfect alignment in separate interviews by LNC last week.
Barry Eccleston, president of Airbus Americas, and Mike Sinnett, VP of Product Strategy for Boeing, each said there is no consensus yet among customers for the Middle of the Market airplane (MOMA), also known as the New Mid-range Airplane (NMA) at Boeing.
Eccleston was interviewed on the sidelines of the annual Seattle conference organized by the British American Business Council Pacific Northwest. Sinnett was interviewed on the sidelines of the annual Governor’s Conference organized by the Aerospace Futures Alliance, a lobbying group in Washington State.
Bjorn’s Corner: The Chinese aircraft engine industry
By Bjorn Fehrm
October 07, 2016, ©. Leeham Co: In our Corners on East bloc aeronautical industries, we will now look at the Chinese civil aircraft engine industry.
The Chinese engine industry is closely modeled after the Chinese aircraft industry that we looked at last week. It is organized as divisions and later subsidiaries to the major aircraft companies. Contrary to the Chinese aircraft industry, it has had major problems in gaining the necessary know-how to start developing and producing its own designs.
The industry has built Soviet designs on license since the 1950s and only recently managed to present functional own designs, after many failures.
No sanctions will be levied on Airbus and Boeing in WTO dispute
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Introduction
Sept. 26, 2016, © Leeham Co.: It’s hazardous to use the word “never,” but the US and European Union will never impose trade sanctions or tariffs on Airbus or Boeing airplanes.
No sane president would do so. (Cue Donald Trump.) It would start a devastating trade war and the collateral damage on innocents in the Airbus-Boeing illegal subsidies disputes would be severely harmed.
Summary
- US tariffs on Airbus aircraft and EU tariffs on Boeing aircraft would hurt engine makers, suppliers—innocents in the illegal subsidy disputes.
- Some key customers order from Airbus and Boeing. Tariffs on one or the other company risk alienating these customers.
- Sanctions/tariffs permitted on other companies, industries.
- Canada, Brazil never imposed sanctions in Bombard-Embraer violations.
44% supplier shortfall for GTF now showing impact
Sept. 6, 2016, © Leeham Co.: It was a stunning admission, one that produced the biggest headlines at the United Technologies media days in June: 44% of the suppliers on Pratt & Whitney’s Geared Turbo Fan engine weren’t performing to the UTC/PW standards.
The impact of this was seen today when Bombardier announced it will deliver only half the anticipated 15 C Series this year because of engine delivery issues by PW for the GTF powering the new airplane.
Bombardier and PW pointed the finger at its supply chain for the delays in delivering engines.
Pontifications: “Troubled” 787 is a thing of the past
LNC has been beset by technical issues since Aug. 17 that interferes with e-mail notification as well as links to Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. We’re working on it with Wordpress.
By Scott Hamilton
Aug. 29, 2016, © Leeham Co.: Faulty engines dominated commercial aviation news last week.
First was ANA’s Boeing 787s were hit by issues with its Rolls-Royce engines. Corrosion was found on key engine parts. ANA cancelled flights to inspect and repair the engines.
Unfortunately, some media characterized the matter as the “latest” to hit the “troubled” 787. The London Telegraph is one example.
This characterization, of course, refers to the history of the 787 with its design and production challenges and later by the grounding from the lithium-ion battery fires.
Russian-Chinese wide-body: background and outlook
By Bjorn Fehrm
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Introduction
August 21, 2016, ©. Leeham Co: The discussions around a joint Russian and Chinese development of a 250-300 seat wide-body has been going on for years.
The project got a more concrete form at President Putin’s visit to China in June. On the 25th of June visit, an inter-governmental agreement to develop and market the aircraft was signed.
Figure 1. Concept for new wide-body airliner. Source: United Aircraft.
At the same time Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) and Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC) agreed to establish a joint venture for the program.
What market is this aircraft trying to address and will it become a serious player in the wide-body market? Will it give the duopoly Airbus/Boeing something to worry about?
We will address these questions in a series of articles. Before going into the questions around the wide-body program, we will look at the players, UAC and COMAC. Are they up to the job of making a competitive wide-body aircraft?
Summary:
- Russia and China enter the wide-body project with widely different knowledge bases.
- China’s first airliner project, ARJ21, just received local certification after years of delays.
- Russia has produced over 10,000 airliners and has made two generations of wide-body aircraft in the size category.
- The latest wide-body aircraft, Ilyushin IL-96, is on the level of Airbus A340-300 from a technological basis.
Irkut MC-21-300 analysis, Part 3
By Bjorn Fehrm
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Introduction
August04, 2016, ©. Leeham Co: With the classification of the Irkut MC-21-300 done in terms of its size segment (it’s close to the Boeing 737 MAX 9 in size) and the key data of the aircraft analyzed, it’s now time to look at aircraft efficiency and payload-range performance.
Figure 1. MC-21-300 prototype on the final assembly line. Source: Irkut
We will do this with two cabin configurations for the aircraft. The first will be the nominal two class seating as proposed by the OEMs. For the second, we use a single class layout with 30-inch seat pitch.
Summary:
- The MC-21 has problems to compete with the re-engined 737 MAX 9 in terms of efficiency when using the standard two class cabins.
- When we switch to a single class high density layout, the fuel efficiency improves. The MC-21-300 exit concept is then more similar to the MAX 9, which affects efficiency in a positive way.
Irkut MC-21; we look at the MC-21-300, Part 2.
By Bjorn Fehrm
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Introduction
August 01, 2016, ©. Leeham Co: After having found the nearest competitor to the Irkut MC-21-300 as the Boeing 737 MAX 9 in our first article, we now go deeper in the comparison of the two aircraft.
Figure 1. MC-21-300 at the roll out in June 2016. Source: Irkut
In the first article, we found that the aircraft have almost identical cabin dimensions. Now we will look at other areas like airframe dimensions, weights and data which dictate overall performance.
Summary:
- The MC-21 has cabin dimensions which are very close to the 737 MAX 9.
- The nominal two class seating by Irkut is lower than the MAX 9. We have assumed that this will increase during the lifetime of the MC-21.
- We also compare other data between the MC-21-300 and the MAX 9, such as weights, wetted areas and effective wingspans to see if these are similar as well. In the end these dictate the aircraft’s efficiency together with the engines.