It’s official: Lion Air revealed as a MAX customer; ACG announces MAX and NG

Update, 1:45pm: Aviation Capital Group announced a commitment for 35 MAXes and a firm order for 20 737-800NGs. ACG becomes the first lessor to commit to the MAX.

ACG announced a firm order for 30 Neos at the Dubai Air Show.

Update, 7:30 AM PST: Boeing says the signing will be for a “commitment” to the MAX. The photo shows it to be the 737-9.

Original Post:

It’s now official: Lion Air has been revealed it is a customer of the Boeing 737 MAX, joining American Airlines as the only two of nine disclosed customers.

We previously identified Lion Air as one of the original five airlines to announce commitments.

The revelation was made in connection with President Obama’s trip to Indonesia.

The type of MAX was not identified, but with a list price of of $21.7bn ($94m per unit), this suggests the planes could be the 737-9, the priciest of the 737 line.  There is a 201/29 split for MAX and -900ERs. Options for 150 have also been revealed.

Lion Air is the largest customer for the 737-900ER.

The news article described the deal as an “order.” A signing ceremony is planned for November 18 Indonesia time, so we’ll see if the commitment has been converted to a firm order. If so, it would be the first.

Dubai Air Show review

The Dubai Air Show is over, with record orders being announced.

2 x B777F for Qatar

20 x A320neo for ACG

45 x A320neo/30 x A320  for Spirit (MoU)

50 x A320neo for Qatar with PW1100G-JM (+30 options)

5 x A380 for Qatar (+3 options)

ALAFCO announcing GTF for all A320neo

Emirates 50+20 777-300ERS

10 x CS300 for Atlasjet (LoI)

We took a bye on daily coverage because we weren’t there and the on-site reporters could do better than we could from afar. So we decided to do a post-show pontification.

Overview

Airbus and Boeing dominated the headline–no surprise there–but while Boeing had a blow-out order with 50+20 777-300ERs from Emirates Airlines, Airbus had another mind-xxxx from the mercurial Akbar “U-Turn” Al-Baker, CEO of Qatar Airways. Al-Baker is now the subject of a mocking Twitter account, @AkbarAlFaker, having a conversation with @MichaelOhReally.

This Bloomberg story gives a nice wrap.

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PNAA aerospace conferences in February, March in Seattle

The Pacific Northwest Aerospace Alliance is hosting two conferences in the Seattle area in February and March.

PNAA’s 11th annual conference is Feb. 6-7-8 at the Lynnwood (WA) Convention Center, north of Seattle and south of Everett. Information may be found here. This 2 1/2 day conference is comprised of a Defense Focus Day on the afternoon of Feb. 6; a day-and-a-half of commercial aviation presentations and a Suppliers’ Fair on the afternoon of the 8th.

Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, CFM, Pratt & Whitney, the Teal Group’s Richard Aboulafia, G2 Global Solutions’ Michel Merluzeau, Alcoa and Electroimpact are among the presenters on the commercial side.

Tayloe Washburn of Project Pegasus and the Washington Aerospace Partnership will discuss the issues surrounding the assembly site of the 737 MAX.

Boeing’s Insitu  EADS North America and Lockheed Martin are among the defense industry presenters.

More than 300 people attended the 2011 conference, which is now the largest in the Pacific Northwest and one of the largest on the West Coast. PNAA serves Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Alberta and British Columbia. It has arranged trade missions from Europe, Asia and Latin America visiting here to meet with Washington State suppliers. PNAA was also asked by the White House and the US Commerce Department to arrange a meeting of key CEOs in Seattle to discuss economic issues affecting aerospace.

The March event PNAA is organizing is a Suppliers Forecasting Symposium. This one day event on March 12 precedes the first USA-based Aerospace & Defense Supplier Summit organized by BCI Aerospace.

The Symposium is the first of its kind: a day-long event focused on forecasting the requirements in the supply chain that services Boeing, other OEMs and the Tier 1 suppliers. Boeing Commercial Airplanes and Boeing Defense, Space & Security will be presenters as well as two noted aerospace analysts from Wall Street, David Strauss of UBS and Robert Spingarn of Credit Suisse. They follow Boeing and the supply chain and have their views on forecasting the needs of the suppliers.

These are two important events sponsored by PNAA and the A&DSS summit by BCI Aerospace is equally important to the Washington aerospace supply chain. PNAA members get a discount to the A&DSS event.

Embraer decides on re-engine, takes a pass on NSA

Embraer announced that it will take a pass on developing a New Small Airplane in the 130-155 seat class and instead re-engine the E-Jet series, possibly with stretch to 133 seats (smack in the middle of the Bombardier CSeries 100/300 size). Targeted entry-in-service (EIS) is 2018.

Aeroturbopower, which focuses on engine stuff, already has this back-of-the-envelope analysis.

As Aeroturbopower notes, EMB favors a one-stop, trans-continental airplane (2,000-2,200nm) over the full transcontinental range of the CSeries (although BBD offers a lighter-weight CSeries with 2,200nm range as well). About 90% of the US domestic flights are within this range but the E-Jet is 2×2 vs the CS 2×3 seating. Aeroturbopower concludes the E-Jet will have lower seat costs.

Aeroturbopower also compares the E-Jet with the Mitsubishi MRJ.

737 MAX vs A320neo: the debate continues

During yesterday’s tele-press conference by Boeing with a program update for the 737 MAX, 737 chief program engineer John Hamilton frequently said the MAX has a 7% operating cost advantage over the A320neo.

He also touted the advantages of the 737-900ER over the A321, with the obvious implications that the 737-9 MAX will have an advantage over the A321neo.

Here is a recap by the Puget Sound Business Journal (there are many others which may be found through Google News).

AirInsight, our affiliate, has written several pieces of the 737NG and 737 MAX vs the A320 family, both legacy and NEO.

See the following articles for additional color on this debate.

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737 MAX ‘commitments’ and what these mean

Note: As a follow up to our previous post about the 787 break-even, Blog by Javier added a third post to simplify his very detailed analysis. You may jump to the link here.

Also: AirInsight has this commentary on the MAX.

Boeing today (Nov. 3) announced it now has more than 600 commitments for the 737 MAX, as well as confirming the 68 inch fan selection and discussed some other issues related to MAX.

Our immediately preceding post synopsized Jim Albaugh’s presentation to Goldman Sachs. Shortly after this, Boeing offered up to the media a tele-press conference with John Hamilton, 737 chief program engineer, to update the status.

One of the things he also referred to was the 600+ commitments by eight airlines for the MAX. Based on questions from the media, focusing on when “commitments” become “orders,” we thought it might be useful for the Reader to discuss this.

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Albaugh announces more than 600 commitments for 737 MAX

At an appearance with Goldman Sachs today, Jim Albaugh, CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, announced there are now more than 600 commitments for the 737 MAX.

  • Announced what we reported weeks ago: Boeing selected 68 inch fan for CFM Leap 1B. Also talking to CFM about a custom core for the engine.
  • Striving for an EIS earlier date than 2017.
  • Doesn’t want team to use “simple” and “re-engine” in the same sentence, but wants to minimize changes.

Boeing slide from Goldman Sachs investors’ conference Nov. 3, 2011

  • I want to be more responsive to customers we have [by increasing rate]. We drive customers to competitors if we don’t have availability.
  • We certainly over-promised and under-delivered on 787. The composites are coming together very well. I’m not going to tell you getting up to rate won’t be a challenge. Biggest challenge is in Charleston. It’s month-by-month. I see a very detailed dashboard on supply chain.
  • We have brought a lot of 787 work back in-house. We have 500 engineers who have nothing to do but to drill down…and manage our suppliers as if they were in our factory.
  • Final assembly won’t be in quite three days, as originally promoted. But we are pleased we now own Charleston because we have control over it. If we didn’t we wouldn’t be as far along as we are today.
  • I’d be getting ahead of myself if we are going to do the Dash-10, but I think we will. It won’t have the range but it will have the value.

PW gains major wins in Rolls-Royce deals

Here are some additional thoughts about the Rolls-Royce/Pratt & Whitney deal announced yesterday.

PW is a real winner in this set of transactions.

  • Buying RR out of the International Aero Engines partnership gives PW far more latitude in making deals for the V2500 engines and the ability to connect V2500 transactions to transitions to Geared TurboFan orders. RR had no incentives to make connected deals, since there was nothing in it for them if a customer ordered the GTF instead of the V2500. CFM had the competitive advantage in offering the CFM56 for legacy airplanes and the LEAP for the A320neo. With PW now controlling the V2500 partnership, PW has come closer to leveling the playing field. Read more

Rolls-Royce, PW join forces for 120-230 seat engine–and to focus on GTF technology

It is a stunning announcement. Not so much the buyout of Rolls-Royce by Pratt & Whitney from the International Aero Engines partnership. This has been expected for more than a year.

What’s stunning in the new partnership RR and PW announced to develop engines in the 120-230 seat market and to focus on Geared Turbo Fan technology.

AirInsight has a commentary on the tie-up.

This is a major shift in the engine competition and a major endorsement of the GTF engine and techn0logy, creating a more formidable competitor to the dominate CFM International.

We’ll have more to say after we digest this a bit and talk with the market.

It’s official: 737NE launched

Here is Flight Global’s story with a couple of artist renderings of the airplane.

Boeing made it official this morning: launch of the 737NE (New Engine) has been approved, bypassing the Authority to Offer.

Boeing said it has commitments for 496 NEs from five airlines. Only American Airlines has been announced, for 100. We expect Southwest Airlines to be another. Delta Air Lines’ order for 100 737-900ERs did not include conversion rights.

Boeing claims the 737NE will be 7% more efficient operating costs than the A320neo, but in its announcement today did not detail how. Boeing also says the 737NE will have 16% lower fuel burn than today’s A320 and 4% lower than the neo.

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