Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Leeham News and Analysis
- New RISE powerplant benefits from decades of GE research and development June 5, 2025
- Engine makers emphasizing durability, reliability June 4, 2025
- Boeing CEO: Lessons learned are key to certification of 737-7/10 and 777X June 2, 2025
- Digital twin is a key to JetZero’s hopes for Blended Wing Body entry June 2, 2025
- Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 24. May 30, 2025
American easing away from continuous hubbing, returning to peak banking
American Airlines will ease away from the continuous hubbing that smooths operations at key airports, increases aircraft utilization and cuts costs as it returns to the peak-and-valley hub-and-spoke system adopted decades ago under former CEO Robert Crandall.
Although this will mean higher costs and big gaps in airport activity, the increased revenue potential–called the power of the hub under Crandall–will offset the increased costs, says Derek Kerr, CFO of American.
We were at American’s Leadership Council meeting for 1,500 employees yesterday. The meeting itself was off the record but we talked with Kerr afterwards on the record.
Kerr, CFO at US Airways prior to the merger between AA and US, said that the continuous hub can’t connect as many passengers as the traditional hub, leaving revenue on the table. Continuous hubbing allowed a 45 minute ground time, which is too short–an hour is needed to maximize connections.
Re-hubbing will occur this year at Chicago, Miami and Dallas.
Southwest Airlines was a pioneer in continuous hubbing, though it wasn’t called this until perhaps a decade ago. Southwest essentially rolls the airplanes up, deplanes, enplanes and departs. At its origin, long before carry on bags, bag fees, security issues and other factors arose, Southwest “turned” its planes in as little as 10 minutes. Today turns are 30 minutes or longer, in part as planes get larger and carry-on bags slow the enplaning process. Still, Southwest eschews the term hubbing and indeed its connection percentage is far lower than American and other traditional airlines.
The de-hubbing is just one step the US Airways management team is taking to remake American following its emergence from bankruptcy last year and the merger in December.
Airbus Innovation Days, Part 3: the A320neo
Klaus Roewe, SVP of the A320neo Family:
There are 2,700 A320neos in the backlog. Roewe provided a program update during the Airbus Innovation Days. Here is a paraphrased synopsis.
- The first flight remains on target for 3Q2014. Final assembly began in the spring.
- No further modification will be required to meet the target of 15% fuel burn improvement.
- The GTF has been delivered to Toulouse; the LEAP-1A is in testing at the CFM factory.
- Production rate is shown at 46/mo from mid-2016 through 2019. We are investigating rate 50 and above.
- Within the supply chain, the first NEO components are 70% better than target. More than 2,000 lessons learned from the A380 and A350 are incorporated into the NEO program. We are already testing control laws for the neo, a lesson learned from previous programs.
- Airbus has discussed with regulators to determine that evacuation of the A320 for up to 200 passengers is possible but a configuration of 189 passengers is more feasible.
- Maximum capacity A321neo (240 pax) reduces per-seat fuel cost by 6%.
- Slim line seats at 28 inches feels like 30 inch seat pitch.
- A321neo could carry 25 more passengers on a 2,500nm route departing Phoenix or Las Vegas, two hot airports that were challenging for the A321ceo (based on the CFM56 engine).
- We are “well below” weight targets.
- Meeting 95% commonality target.
- There has been an increase of airlines configuring the A321 with more than 200 seats from 5% to 40%, which drove the larger-capacity design of the A321neo.
- Flap extension will go up from 27 degrees to 34 degrees, and some changes to spoilers will be incorporated into the neo.
PW Media Day 1: next gen GTF to cut fuel costs 10%-15% over today’s GTF
We’re at the Pratt & Whitney media days today and tomorrow. This is the Technology at PW panel. Participants are:
Alan Epstein, engineer and moderator. (AE)
Michael Winter, chief technologists (MW)
Graham Webb, MRJ, CSeries and EJet engines. (GW)
Jimmy Kenyon, advanced military programs. (JK)
All information is paraphrased.
GW: At $4/gal, over 60% of cost to an airline is for fuel. Engines must cut these costs. A380 and 787 consume less than 3 liters per passenger, about that of a compact car.
GTF is certified [on CSeries]. GTF now on five airframes with 12 sub-types. The engine reduces fuel and maintenance costs, reduced emissions. Fuel savings now demonstrated at 16% less than today’s engines.
Next generation of GTF will further reduce fuel burn by 10%-15%.
MW: The noise footprint will stay predominately within the airport boundaries, using 2,000 fewer foils, about half of our competitor’s engine. Emissions are about 50% below current regulations and working with NASA toward 88% below current levels.
Current bypass ratio about 13:1 and currently testing with NASA 15:1 and 18:1.
375% improvement in efficiency since the days of the Whittle jet engine.
We have the most advanced cooling system in the industry and we are exploring inserting advanced materials into the engines when there is real benefit to the customer.
JK: We’re seen similar trends to improve efficiency in military as with commercial. The Department of Defense is the biggest user of energy in the country, with about 80% in engines.
The military has seen really tight budgets in recent years. There is more than just a cost issue, it’s also an energy security issue (Iraq, Afghanistan challenges). There is a real interest in cutting energy usage and aviation being such a large part, it is a natural place to look.
The strategy considers places where you have to fly farther and/or stay on station longer. We’re working on technology to provide fuel management and efficiency to reduce costs, fly father and stay on station longer.
We’re working with USAF to obtain 25% improvement in fuel efficiency on next engines, and with Navy to also improve efficiency, and leveraging work in the commercial arena to improve thermal efficiency.
AE: Are you a one-trick pony? What have you got besides the gear?
GW: We have advanced fan module, bringing forward light weight fan cases, the next generation combustor, advanced core, state-of-the-art high pressure turbine and high speed low pressure turbine, all of which designed for the very high speeds. There are control system enhancements, working on next gen of the fan-drive gear system, short inlets for enhanced efficiency.
GE engines faces challenge from PW, RR GTF technology
The recent announcement by Rolls-Royce that their future engines will contain gearboxes has put GE and its CFM partner SAFRAN under considerable pressure.
GE/SAFRAN were together with Rolls-Royce proponents to go directly from Direct-Drive turbofans to Open Rotor designs for the next generation aircrafts. This left Pratt & Whitney as the only major engine manufacturer promoting high by-pass ratio geared turbofans as a better alternative for these aircrafts. With the Rolls-Royce announcement of Advance for 2020 (Carbon fanned tri-shaft) and Ultrafan (Geared big fan) for 2025, this has all changed. Suddenly Pratt & Whitney has strong support in their strategy and GE/SAFRAN stand out as loners.
By honing key technologies in their traditional two shaft turbofans GE, and GE/SAFRAN in CFM, have built a market leading position in all thrust classes, Regional (CF34), Single Aisle (CFM56) and Dual Aisle (CF6, GEnx, GE90). Their declared next step was Open Rotor for future Single Aisle while keeping Direct-Drive for larger engines.
Airbus and Snecma continue to research open rotor technology. Aviation Week has this story.
Now this solid position is threatened. The geared architecture has won the future regional market (CSeries, MRJ, E-Jet E2 goes PW GTF), market parity on the A320neo family and the 757 replacement studies by Boeing (dubbed NAS, New Airplane Study) will not go Open Rotor as Open Rotor only works up to M 0.75 and the 757 replacement will likely fly over 4,000nm, necessitating higher cruise speed. The NAS will thereby favor a geared turbofan instead of Open Rotor. Why not Direct-Drive? There are two major reasons:
- A geared design allows higher by-pass ratios and thereby higher propulsive efficiency without the engine being too heavy from its large low pressure turbine needed to drive a high BPR fan.
- A geared design can allow the big fan to rotate slowly and with a low pressure ratio. This creates a low noise engine, a very important feature for aircrafts operating out of noise troubled airports.
GE/SAFRAN has shown with their CFM LEAP project that they can match the efficiency levels of a geared engine like Pratt & Whitney’s GTF, using its superior hot section technology to achieve the high efficiency. It cannot achieve the low noise levels of a geared fan however; engine noise stands in direct relation to fan rotational speed and pressure ratio.
It will thereby be the environmental factors that will put the most stress on GE/SAFRAN’s present strategy. Having lost the regionals to the geared camp, will it also lose the next generation short/medium haul? It will be interesting to watch the GE/SAFRAN over the next 18 months: does it change strategy or not? If one goes by the recent words of GE Aviation President David Joyce (who spoke at last week’s opening of their Indiana LEAP factory), he thinks his present line-up is fine for a 757 replacement, and he sees no urgent need for new developments.
By Leeham Co EU
Rolls-Royce plans for new single-aisle, twin-aisle airplane engines
Rolls-Royce may not be at a cross road but it’s certainly at a fork in the road.
RR sought to be a dual-source supplier for the Boeing 777X, competing with GE Aviation for the privilege; it was generally a given that GE would be a provider. The question was whether it would be the sole supplier or share the platform with another. Pratt & Whitney withdrew, concluding the business case wasn’t there for its proposed big Geared Turbo Fan. RR stayed in the competition, assured by Boeing that it wasn’t a stalking horse to GE.
But GE won the position as exclusive supplier, much to RR’s consternation.
Next, the future of the Airbus A350-800, powered exclusively by RR, is in serious doubt. The backlog is now down to a mere 46 as customer after customer, encouraged by Airbus, up-gauged to the A350-900 and -1000 sub-types. While RR is also the exclusive supplier on each of these models, and the engines are largely common, there has been substantial investment by Rolls on the -800’s application. If the -800 is canceled (as many industry observers believe it will be), RR’s investment is largely down the drain. How does Airbus “make good” to RR for this?
Odds and Ends: Airbus neos; 757RS/A320RS; charity efforts
Airbus neos: The conversation continues, with Tom Williams, EVP of programmes, giving an interview to Flight Global about the A330neo and the A380neo. Plane Talking has another version of the Williams interview. Notable in Plane Talking’s report is the indication Williams said it will be a year before a decision is made on the A330neo. Our information is that a decision, whether yes or no, is due this year. PT also reports Williams indicated an A380neo would be a 2020s product. This suggests the prospect of a new engine from Rolls-Royce, which is under development, or conceivably a Big Engine Pratt & Whitney GTF could be considered.
757RS/A320RS: Aerotubropower, whose expertise is engines, discusses the implications of the planned improvements in fuel burn on the Pratt & Whitney Geared Turbo Fan and what this means for the replacement of the Boeing 757, 737 and Airbus A320 families.
Charity efforts: IAM 751, the touch-labor union for Boeing, is often portrayed as a bunch greedy members who feel a sense of entitlement. One can certainly debate this point, but what isn’t debatable is 751’s efforts at charity throughout the year. Every once in a while, we pop over to 751’s blog. Today (Feb. 19) the first four items are about philanthropic efforts in Pierce and King counties.
Just as 751 members are often cast as greedy, so is Boeing, so it is only proper in this context to point out that Boeing also engages in philanthropic endeavors throughout the US (we don’t know about abroad). Here’s a link to some of Boeing’s efforts.