Delta to order 737-900s, small airplane order deferred

Bloomberg News just tweeted Delta Air Lines is to order 100 Boeing 737-900s. WE have three sources saying the same, though without the number.

Boeing won the deal over the Airbus A320/320neo due to earlier delivery positions and price, we are told.

Update, 9:50am PDT: We heard last week that Delta may defer ordering the 100-150 seat airplane and while we’ve been working to confirm this, Flightblogger beat us to it.

UPDATE 12:46 PM ET: CONFIRMED – Delta will order 100 737-900ER aircraft, the largest single order for the type. Further, industry sources confirm that a selection of a smaller narrowbody that pitted the CSeries against the Embraer E-195 has been delayed, as the airline does not see the same level of urgency to replace its 757s starting in 2013. The airline’s aircraft evaluations excluded consideration of the re-engined narrowbodies from Airbus and Boeing. FULL STORY SHORTLY

Embraer ponders new, 2,000nm airplane

 

 

Embraer is pondering a new, 2,000nm airplane in the 130-150 seat class. Here is the Flight Global story.

The interesting thing about this is that Bank of America’s Ronald Epstein characterizes the CSeries as having too much range with 2,950nm, which gives it US trans-continental operations. In fact, Bombardier offers two versions: the 2,950nm range XT and the 2,200nm standard.

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Analysts opine on Embraer, Bombardier

Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan issued notes this week that give some opinions on rivals Embraer and Bombardier:

Goldman Sachs: Embraer

July 31: We believe Embraer remains the best, yet most ignored, story in our commercial aerospace coverage. We highlight the following key incremental takeaways from the EPS report and conference call: (1) 2H regional jet new orders could equal or surpass 1H (even though 1H was a record) which would mean full-year 2011 book-to- bill would surpass 2.0X. We think demand for the E-190 right now is stronger relative to current supply than any aircraft in the world. (2) Tone on business jet was noticeably more positive for the first time in a while, with particular strength noted on the Phenom 300. We think ERJ can close to triple its business jet revenue between now and 2015. (3) Defense opportunities are occurring faster than expected. We continue to see very large upside potential in ERJ’s Defense segment given initiatives around the World Cup and Olympics and how large the KC-390 program will be. (4) Management sounds confident it can continue to expand margins despite the Real, and possibly meaningfully if the Real were to reverse. (5) Next-gen product   strategy decisions are likely made by year-end, and it sounds like one of either a clean sheet or E-195 stretch / re-engine will occur (we believe the case for the latter increasingly makes sense).

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For Boeing: when one door closes, another door opens

There’s a saying that when one door closes on an opportunity, another door opens. This is the case with Boeing’s decision to proceed with a 737 re-engine. We first wrote about this in a previous post. Max-Kinglsey Jones of Airline Business picked up the theme in his recent blog.

There’s no question Boeing’s march down the path to re-engining was driven by Airbus, it was embarrassing and it was messy. Having said that, the re-engine frees resources and money to concentrate on getting the 787-9 right, launching the 787-10 and deciding what to do with the 777-300ER to meet the competition of the re-defined A350-1000.

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Paris Air Show outlook

There are several items looking at the Paris Air Show outlook:

AirInsight had a live discussion Friday with Addison Schonland, Richard Aboulafia and Ernie Arvai hosting it. The transcript is here.

AirInsight also published a lengthy written preview of what to expect from all the major airframe and engine OEMs here.

Here’s a short-take on Airbus at the show.

Odds and ends: More on DC-7B trip

Here are some more photos from our DC-7B trip. All photos by Scott Hamilton.

PBY

This PBY Catalina, a derelict but intact condition, is at the San Juan Airport. Given the loss of a PBY several years ago in a landing accident, could this become a new, restored edition?

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Tariffs won’t be assessed in WTO Airbus, Boeing cases

The decision is in on the appeal of the WTO panel decision in the Airbus and pending on the WTO’s panel findings on Boeing.

The “what’s next” is dispute resolution and, failing this, the prospect of imposing tariffs on Airbus and Boeing airplanes.

This won’t happen. Why? It’s simple: too much is at stake. Neither company wants a trade war.

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McNerney’s interesting comments on the new airplane

We’re off hiatus, having completed several projects that now gives us some time to pay attention to this column.

It didn’t seem to get much pickup but on the Boeing 1Q earnings call, CEO Jim McNerney said something on the call that really perked up our ears.

First, some necessary context.

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Going on hiatus

Due do a number of special projects with near-term deadlines, this column will be a hiatus for a while. In the meantime, please see our affiliate, AirInsight, for commentary and news.

2011 Outlook for Aerospace

Note: this is unusually long, 11 pages when printed.

The new year is here and it is time for our annual look-ahead for the big OEMs.

On a macro level, 2011 should be a good year. Airline passenger and cargo traffic recovery should continue. The global economy also is recovering, but it is almost painfully slow to do so. Still, this is better than some of the alternatives.

Airlines and lessors are likely to continue their order stream that resumed in mid-2010 at the Farnborough Air Show. There could be some key orders that will influence the OEMs and their strategies going forward.

On the military front, we are much more limited in our tracking. We follow the KC-X tanker program because the offerings are based on commercial airliners. We slightly follow the P-8A Poseidon for the same reason, but Boeing pretty much has the monopoly for this type airplane, so there isn’t much to follow.

We do closely follow cybersecurity issues, if for no other reason than it is so important but also because key aerospace companies, including Boeing, have major efforts in this arena.

But by and large, we focus on the OEMs, the emerging competitors and the new engines.

So let’s get to it.

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