Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Leeham News and Analysis
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- Boeing welcomes COMAC competition as Asia-Pacific demand soars April 15, 2025
- How good is the C929? April 14, 2025
- Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 17. April 11, 2025
- Uncertainty plagues airline, aerospace, lessor industries over tariffs April 10, 2025
Embraer’s 3rd Quarter 2023 results contain good news
By Bjorn Fehrm
November 6, 2023, ©. Leeham News: Embraer presented its 3Q2023 results today. Commercial aircraft deliveries increased by 50% to 15 E-Jets compared with 10 jets in 3Q2022, and Executive jets delivered 28 jets versus 23 for 3Q2022.
Revenue for the group increased by 38% to $1,284m ($929m) for the quarter. The Services side increased revenue by 24% to $366m ($295m). The Defense revenue was up 40% to $133m($95m).
EBIT was $84m versus $11m for the same quarter last year. The company retained the 2023 guidance to deliver 65-70 E-jets and 120-130 Executive jets for the year.
Embraer 2nd Quarter 2023 results show a positive trend
By Bjorn Fehrm
August 14, 2023, ©. Leeham News: Embraer presented its 2Q2023 results today. Commercial aircraft deliveries increased to 24 E-jets jets for 1H2023 compared with 17 E-jets in 1H2022, and Executive jets delivered 38 jets (29) in the period.
Revenue for the group increased by 24% to $2,009m ($1,620m) for the half year. The Services side increased revenue by 12.7% to $666m ($591m). The Defense revenue was 7.7% down at $180m($195m).
Half-year EBIT was $21m (-$263). The company retained the 2023 guidance, which means delivering 65-70 E-jets and 120-130 Executive jets during 2023.
Paris Day Two: Air India finalizes earlier deals; Embraer, ATR announce orders
By Bryan Corliss
June 20, 2023, © Leeham News – While Monday’s news from the Paris Air Show was dominated by the one big Airbus order from Indian carrier IndiGo, Tuesday saw a host of smaller deals announced by OEMs, airlines and leasing companies.
IndiGo rival Air India also announced it had finalized its massive 470-jet order from February, which it had split between Boeing and Airbus.
While there was a significant volume of deals announced Tuesday, in many cases, they were formal announcements of deals that OEMs already were carrying on their order books.
- Air India finalizes Boeing, Airbus orders
- Boeing lands orders from airlines, lessors
- Airbus reveals new orders and buyers in previous deals
- Embraer and ATR announce first deals of show
- Eviation announces LOI for Alices
Are the world’s regional airlines dying?
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By Scott Hamilton
June 17, 2023, © Leeham News: Is the regional airline market across the globe dying?
Ed Bastian, CEO of Delta Air Lines. Credit: CNBC.
Many think so. Certainly, the market demand for the regional jet is shrinking in the 10- and 20-year market forecasts. Bombardier withdrew from the market as demand for its aging CRJ family shriveled. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries killed its RJ SpaceJet program as delays and development costs mounted. Bombardier also exited its turboprop airliner business. ATR is now the sole producer of large turboprops outside China and Russia.
Embraer is now the sole producer of regional jets outside of China and Russia, and it doesn’t even want to call the E-Jet a regional airliner.
Regional airlines in the US face a continuing and growing shortage of pilots. Those in Europe face pressure from environmentalists to the governments to ban short-haul flights in favor of trains.
Despite these challenges and the conclusions of some that the regional airline business is dying, regional carriers take exception to these conclusions.
One regional airline official even took exception to the CEO of Delta Air Lines, who concurred with the dead-and-dying trend.
Speaking at the Aviation Week MRO Americas conference in April in Atlanta, Ed Bastian noted that Delta began trending away from regional carriers many years before.
Pontificatons: Paris Air Show preview
By Scott Hamilton
June 13, 2023, © Leeham News: The Paris Air Show officially opens next Monday. LNA will be there, with some events scheduled as early as this Friday.
Our expectations are modest. We don’t expect any new airplane programs from Airbus, Boeing or Embraer, or ATR. These are the only remaining major aircraft companies outside China and Russia.
China’s COMAC finally saw its C919 passenger jet enter service last month after 13 years of development and seven years after entry into service was planned. There won’t be anything new this year from COMAC.
Russia, of course, is immersed in its Ukrainian war. No new civil airplane programs will come from here.
Based on the pre-air show pitches I’ve been receiving, the alternative energy sector is going to be well-represented and active at the show. Most concepts, LNA feels, have little-to-no future.
We expect the news from the Duopoly and Embraer and ATR to be pretty much all about orders. Expectations will be mixed.
Pontifications: Lockheed confident as C-130J faces Airbus A400M and Embraer C-390
The last article in a series of interviews with Lockheed Martin.
By Scott Hamilton
June 6, 2023, © Leeham News: The Lockheed Martin C-130 cargo plane entered production in 1954. The first flight was the same year and it entered service in December 1956.
The latest version, the C-130J, is still in production. Named the Hercules, the C-130 is operated by armed services all over the world. Retired versions serve as aerial fire-fighting tankers. A small number of civilian versions, the L-100, serve as commercial freighters.
The C-130J, called the Super Hercules, extends the life of the C-130 series indefinitely. And production for its first civilian operator, a Texas cargo airline, is underway.
Attempts by Airbus with the larger A400M and Embraer with the similarly sized, jet-powered C-390 to compete with or replace the C-130 have largely failed. More than 2,600 C-130s have been produced in 69 years.
The larger A400M has been a technically challenging aircraft and a financial disaster for Airbus. Production began in 2007. The first flight was in December 2009. It entered service in 2013. Only somewhat more than 100 have been built and sales of less than 200 have been made. A host of technical problems marred performance and schedule.
Embraer’s KC-390/C-390, about the same size as the C-130, trades turboprops for jet engines. Production began in 2014. The first flight was in February 2015, and it entered service in 2019. The Brazilian Air Force was to be the largest customer and operator. But financial constraints and changing policies resulted in a reduction in the order. As of today, only about 70 have been ordered and only about a dozen are in service.
Embraer partnered with the US company L3 Harris to market the C-390, including to the US Air Force.
Embraer reports first-quarter losses but says production will increase
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By Bryan Corliss
May 5, 2023 © Leeham News – Embraer on Thursday reported a loss in what typically is a slow quarter for the Brazilian jet-maker.
However, executives talked up plans for production ramp-ups and ongoing sales campaigns as they pointed toward growth in future quarters.
“We are on track and we are going to get there,” CEO Francisco Gomes Neto said.
- Deliveries up year-over-year
- Supply chain ‘still challenging’
- 11 active campaigns involving 200 jets
Embraer deliveries surge; executives proclaim rebound from Covid, failed merger
By Bryan Corliss
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March 13, 2023, © Leeham News — Embraer executives said last week that the company is on a flight path to growth after weathering two major storms in 2020.
“As we have said, since 2020, the 2021 and 2022 years would be dedicated to the business recovery after two simultaneous crises – the pandemic and the end of the Boeing deal – and the focus will be on growth from 2023,” Embraer CEO Francisco Gomes Neto said Friday.
“We can now state we have fulfilled what was promised,” he continued. “The business turnaround was completed in 2022, and we are ready to start a new growth phase.”
Embraer still faces “supply chain challenges this year,” he acknowledged, “but we are optimistic about the company’s future in terms of revenue growth and profitability.”
Neto made the declaration as his company reported delivering 80 regional and executive jets in the fourth quarter of 2022, which was roughly half of the total deliveries for the year.
The company reported earnings before interest and taxes of US $166.2 million for the quarter, which was 196% better than its earnings in the same quarter of 2021.
- Embraer sees orders recovery
- China is one of two promising markets
- Business jet market ‘very robust’
- Continued investment in decarbonization
Read more
The long, slow death of Mitsubishi’s SpaceJet
By Scott Hamilton
The Mitsubishi MRJ90, rebranded the SpaceJet, was to be replaced by the M100. The M100 was Scope Clause compliant and certifiable, unlike the poorly conceived MRJ90. Credit: Leeham News.
Feb. 9, 2023, © Leeham News: Mitsubishi Heavy Industry’s (MHI) announcement this week that it finally killed the SpaceJet program is hardly new. This was apparent as far back as January 2020 when all the Canadian and American leadership at Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp (MITAC) was unceremoniously booted out. Then, in May 2020, using the COVID pandemic as an excuse, all US operations were closed; so was the recently opened Canadian engineering center; the budget was reduced by 95%; and nearly all the engineers at the home office in Nagoya, Japan, were laid off or reassigned.
MHI refused to state the obvious. Instead, officials said repeatedly that the program was “paused.” This drip, drip, drip was all about saving face. Thus, the slide in MHI’s presentation about why the program was finally being killed was more candid than expected.
Orders at risk: Year-End 2022 snapshot
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By Vincent Valery
Introduction
Feb. 6, 2023, © Leeham News: With the publication of the Airbus and Boeing announcing 2022 orders and deliveries last month, and Boeing’s published its 2022 Annual Report (10-K), we undertake our annual analysis of at-risk deals on their books.
Airbus and Boeing have outstanding orders with airlines where there is a material probability some orders won’t translate into deliveries. Most were the result of airlines encountering financial difficulties, but some were related to contractual disputes. Boeing flags such orders as subject to an ASC 606 accounting rule adjustment.
Unlike Boeing, Airbus isn’t subject to an accounting rule like the ASC 606 adjustments at a program level. Therefore, the European OEM does not break down the orders at risk of cancellation by the program. Airbus only discloses the nominal value of its total adjusted order book in its annual report.
LNA analyzed July 2020, November 2020, August 2021, February 2022, and August 2022 Airbus’ and Boeing’s order books to identify orders at risk and come up with an apples-to-apples comparison. We update this analysis with the latest order books from both OEMs. The above links explain our methodology and its differences with Boeing’s ASC 606 adjustments.
Summary
- Lingering order book cleanup for older programs;
- Improving single aisle order book quality;
- Country-level single-aisle market share
- One order materially affects OEM twin-aisle market share.