Leeham News and Analysis

There's more to real news than a news release.

There's more to real news than a news release.

Odds and Ends: Crowded airplanes; A350 first flight; Air France to firm A350 order

Crowded airplanes: USA Today has an article discussing today’s crowded airplanes. It’s going to get worse. Airbus is offering a configuration for the A380 that has 11 abreast in coach. Boeing says most airlines are now selecting 10 abreast for the 777. Most customers are choosing nine abreast for the 787. Gone are the days when the center seat had good odds of being empty. This is why Bombardier designed its CSeries wit a 19 inch center seat, the widest in the industry.

A350 first flight: Thursday at 10am Toulouse time.

Air France and A350: Several reports indicate Air France will at long last firm up its order for the A350 at the Paris Air Show. It has been held up over maintenance contract issues with Rolls-Royce.

 

 47 Comments

 Posted on June 10, 2013 by

 Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, CSeries

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Countdown to first flights for A350, CSeries

Lots of news stories as we countdown to first flight of the Airbus A350 and Bombardier CSeries.

Airbus

Eyes on A350: Wired

A350 nears first flight: Wall Street Journal

Taking on Boeing: AFP via Industry Week

A350 flight test detail: Aviation Week

Bombardier

Challenges f0r EIS, Bloomberg News

First flight imminent but hurdles remain: Toronto Star

CSeries on Track: via Airwise.com

 35 Comments

 Posted on June 8, 2013 by

 Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, CSeries

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Odds and Ends: Boeing jobs move; JetBlue’s trans-con plan; Airbus Innovation Days; BBD confidence

Boeing jobs move: We’re not a fan of Loren Thompson, but his commentary in Forbes yesterday is spot on. Boeing is moving jobs out of Washington State to bolster its Charleston (SC) cluster and simply to move to non-union locations.

Washington State needs to come up with some real planning to address the competitiveness in relation to the South. So far, what’s been unveiled is more of the same–there’s no innovation. This isn’t going to work.

JetBlue’s trans-con plan: The US discount carrier said it was contemplating two-class service across the USA. A filing reveals what it was thinking (with a tip to Mary Kirby on this one). What surprises us more than anything is the low density planned in the Airbus A321: just 156 seats. JetBlue’s single-class A320 has 150 seats. Strikes us that JBLU is leaving a lot of potential revenue behind.

Airbus Innovation Days: AirInsight went to the Airbus Innovation Days this week and has a number of postings here.

Here are some more stories coming out of the Airbus days:

Financial Times

Reuters

Bombardier says CSeries is a “done deal.” Meaning no more delays. This is a pretty bold statement, given the history at Airbus and Boeing. The Reuters story reports the confidence at BBD, but from a pizzazz perspective, it still seems unlikely the CSeries will fly during the show. In the firmest indication yet, it now looks like the first flight will be the last week of June.

11 Abreast on the A380: Not for me.

787-10 Will be marketing “disaster.” So says John Leahy in this article** (all the way at the bottom). That’s not at all what we are hearing from the potential customers we talk to. Lessors and airlines alike look forward to the airplane. Leahy compares the 787-10 with the 767-400, which was a marketing disaster–only two airlines, Delta and Continental–bought the airplane. Both found a workable niche for it, but the 787-10 is no 767-400. With range of 7,000nm, it will have 82% of the mission range of the 8,500nm 787-9, A350 (and A380), it matches the A330-200 HGW, exceeds the 6,000 nm range of the A330-300 HGW and nearly matches the 7,200 nm range of the early 787-8s–with nominally 323 seats, the size of the 777-200ER and the A350-900.

** Readers may have to go to Google News and type in headline “Stretch Version of A380 still far off”

or try this URL directly

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/aviation/stretch-version-of-a380-still-far-off-says-airbus-chief-john-leahy/story-e6frg95x-1226658853394

 23 Comments

 Posted on June 7, 2013 by

 Airbus, AirInsight, Boeing, Bombardier, CSeries

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To paint or not to paint, that is the question

To paint or not: We’re in Chicago for an industry event called Chi-Stat (essentially a big party) and one of the topics of discussion is whether Bombardier should take a few days out of its test schedule to paint CSeries Flight Test Vehicle 1 in advance of the first flight.

Yes, one side says, even if it means delaying the flight a few days into July. The world wide photos of first flight is worth painting the airplane. No, the other side says: Bombardier is focused on maintaining schedule. We were a bit surprised at the time of the “reveal” in March that the airplane had not been painted then. There was no roll-out because BBD didn’t want to break the schedule. Officials are very focused on breaking the recent history of Airbus and Boeing delays and to not add to the six month delay already built into the CSeries program.

What do you think?

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Here are a couple of BBD items:

Montreal Gazette

Belfast Telegraph

 

 31 Comments

 Posted on June 6, 2013 by

 Bombardier, CSeries

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Odds and Ends: Boeing moves jobs from WA State; CSeries FTV 1; A350 power up; 787-9 assembly; 777

Moving jobs out of Washington: The Seattle Times has a story about last Friday’s announcement that Boeing is moving more engineering jobs out of Washington.

CSeries: Airliners.net had this photo over the weekend. The first flight is expected after the Paris Air Show.

Bombardier CS100 Flight Test Vehicle #1.

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Airbus has powered up the engines on the A350 for the first time. First flight is expected within weeks, likely before the Paris Air Show.

A350

Airbus photo.

Smaller jet demand: The smallest Airbus and Boeing jets have weak demand, reports Aviation Week. And we’re not just talking about the A319 and 737-700/7.

787-9 Assembly begins: It was a busy weekend, with all of the above and capped by the start of 787-9 assembly. The first three 789s will be built on the Surge Line at Everett.

777 Painting: We linked two stories last week, to KING 5 and to The Seattle Times, about the robotic wing painting for the 777 line. Here is a photo:

777 Automated Spray Method

Boeing photo

Boeing currently is only robotically painting wings going on even-numbered line numbers. Wings going on the odd-numbered lines are still painted by hand for now. Because the program is new, the programmers continue to adjust the software between the even- and odd-numbered line wings, and eventually all the 777 wings will be painted robotically.

The paint shop is big enough to accommodate 777X wings, including the folding wing tips. This, of course, implies the 777X will be assembled in Everett. It’s unclear where the wings will be built.

The robotic painting is part of the 777 Lean manufacturing begun in 2005, which in the entire process has enabled Boeing to boost 777 production to 8.3 a month within the same assembly line space.

While this is the highest twin-aisle rate Boeing has produced to-date, Airbus has been assembling A330s at rate 10/mo for some time and is considering going to rate 11. Boeing, of course, will be at rate 10 for the 787 by year end. Airbus long ago announced plans to go to rate 10 for the A350 four years after EIS, but John Leahy is already pushing for a second assembly line to accommodate A350-1000 demand.

 11 Comments

 Posted on June 3, 2013 by

 Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, CSeries

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Odds and Ends: BBD’s CSeries leader; Antarctica; Irreverent

Bombardier’s head of CSeries: The Toronto Globe and Mail has this interview with Rob Dewar, the head of the CSeries program. Separately, the last of the CAST safety tests has been completed.

Diverting from aerospace: CNN has this piece about sailing in the Antarctica, which is on our Bucket List.

It’s Friday, it’s been a long week: We just want to be irreverent.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESxlPKnufwU&w=420&h=315]

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Here’s a take on ancillary revenues.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3so6AJe4UQ&w=420&h=315]

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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJheoLUtX_Q&w=560&h=315]

 

 4 Comments

 Posted on May 31, 2013 by

 Bombardier, CSeries

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Odds and Ends: Fixing the 787; PW GTF; ANA to retire 747s

Fixing the 787: Avionics magazine has a long article on fixing the Boeing 787 battery issues.

PW GTF: The Hartford Courant has a piece profiling the quiet nature of the Pratt & Whitney Geared Turbo Fan engine. While news articles talk about noise, this is pretty abstract for readers. Bombardier has the best, single source we’ve seen for noise illustrations, with several links within this site. Even that is somewhat abstract, so BBD has this link to compare noise with urban sounds.

ANA to retire 747s: They’ll be gone this year. JAL retired them in 2011. Good luck, Airbus, selling them the A380. ANA also returns the 787 to service Saturday.

  • We’re at Boeing today and tomorrow for Paris Air Show briefings. Look for 737 MAX and 777 (today’s model) postings. Everything else is embargoed to June 11 (Current Market Outlook) and June 14 (everything else).

 7 Comments

 Posted on May 29, 2013 by

 Boeing, Bombardier, CSeries, Pratt & Whitney

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Boeing gets launch order for MAX 7

Boeing finally got a launch order for the 737-7 MAX, from Southwest Airlines.

Southwest converted 30 737-700 orders to the 737-7.

The 7 MAX competes with the Airbus A319neo and the Bombardier CSeries.

AirbusBBDBoeing

 20 Comments

 Posted on May 15, 2013 by

 Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, CSeries

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Taking care of business at the airframe OEMs

The news yesterday the Boeing resumed delivery of the 787 is good news, not just for Boeing and the airlines, but for all the stakeholders.

Although Boeing did not stop or slow production of the aircraft during the grounding, had the grounding continued for six months instead of 3 1/2 we saw, Boeing may well have had to slow down the supply chain.

The 50 airplanes in the field are slowly returning to service. The last are to be carrying passengers by next month.

Now it’s back to taking care of business.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9-R9S1m4dA&w=420&h=315]

The launch of the 787-10 was pushed to the right during the grounding. We fully expect this launch to come soon, perhaps at the Paris Air Show. The 777X received its Authority to Offer last month. We anticipate formal launch by year end, perhaps at the Dubai Air Show with a huge order from Emirates Airlines. We also think there will be some commitments announced at the Paris Air Show, by Qatar Airways, which always likes to make a splash at the European event.

Production for the 787 is ramping up toward the 10 per month goal Boeing set for the end of this year, and despite skeptics (we included), it looks like this will happen. But Boeing needs to go beyond 10/mo to 14 to accommodate the 787-10 and demand for the current offerings. With a planned 2018 EIS for the -10, there’s plenty of time to bring the supply chain into line for this.

Over at Airbus, the A350 MSN001 has been painted and is prepping for handover to flight test.

Read more

 13 Comments

 Posted on May 15, 2013 by

 Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, CSeries, Embraer

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Odds and Ends: 777X features; progress on A350, 787-9 and CSeries

777X features: More details are emerging about the planned features of the Boeing 777X.

Progress, Progress, Progress: The CSeries prototype gets its tail number, the Boeing 787-9 is taking shape, and the first A350 has been painted.

Richard Branson in drag: this speaks for itself.

EADS North America on Sequester: The CEO, Sean O’Keefe, has this Op-Ed commentary on Sequester. He doesn’t pull punches.

 14 Comments

 Posted on May 13, 2013 by

 Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, CSeries

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