Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Leeham News and Analysis
- China bans Boeing, US parts imports in tariff war April 15, 2025
- 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
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.
Posted on May 23, 2011 by Scott Hamilton
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.
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.
Posted on April 14, 2011 by Scott Hamilton
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.
Posted on January 3, 2011 by Scott Hamilton
Boeing’s 737 ramp up shows confidence in economy, ‘skyline’ and the unions
The announcement last week that Boeing once again is planning to ramp up production of its venerable 737 line show confidence on a number of levels:
- The global economy continues to recover;
- The strength of the backlog, aka “skyline,’ is strong;
- The efficiency of the Lean production line only gets better; and
- The confidence in the labor unions (notably IAM 751) appears to be gaining strength compared with the depths of anger following the 2008 57-day strike and the October 2009 decision to put the second assembly line for the 787 in Charleston (SC).
Posted on September 20, 2010 by Scott Hamilton
737 production rate hike, PW’s GTF, Airbus’ A320 NEO
We talk about the prospect of a production rate hike at AirInsight this morning.
- Here’s a story from Flight Global taking a detailed, focused look at the Pratt & Whitney P1000G Geared Turbo Fan, which will power the Bombardier CSeries, Irkut MC-21 and Mitsubishi MRJ; and will likely be chosen by Airbus to power the A320 family New Engine Option.
- Speaking of the A320 NEO, look for an announcement on September 30 or shortly thereafter giving the green light for this program.
- Embraer is also considering whether to reengine its E-Jet series with the GTF.
- Flight International has this detailed report on the Bombardier CSeries to be the first airplane to have telemetry for the black box flight data recorder.
Posted on September 2, 2010 by Scott Hamilton
PW’s GTF, Boeing’s culture, China’s C919 and ARJ21, CSeries
Jon Ostrower of FlightGlobal has this piece about the “bolt-on” of Pratt & Whitney’s P1524G PurePower Geared Turbo Fan. The PurePower, also known as the Geared Turbo Fan, is the engine designed for Bombardier’s CSeries, with larger versions anticipated for development to re-engine the Airbus A320 family and potentially for application to the replacement airplane for the Boeing 737.
PW’s PurePower website is here.
Airbus said at the Farnborough Air Show that it has made the business case to re-engine the family, and it will conclude the study by the end of September whether engineering resources will be freed up to proceed with the project. We believe Airbus will green-light the program, with an announcement at the end of next month or in October.
Posted on August 26, 2010 by Scott Hamilton
Farnborough/Monday
Updates throughout the post, 415PM BST.
Here is a look ahead for Monday at the Farnborough Air Show and what might be expected for news and orders in the coming week. We’ll update this post at the end of the day.
Airbus
John Leahy on Saturday predicted at least 130 orders will be announced this week. Boeing thinks that if Leahy is predicting 130, he’s got a lot more up his sleeve. Leahy also predicted orders from leasing companies, signaling improving economies. See individual companies below.
Posted on July 18, 2010 by Scott Hamilton
The Coming Aerospace Squeeze: Emerging Competitors
AirInsight has released a report entitled “The Coming Aerospace Squeeze – a review of commercial aircraft programs in Brazil, Canada, China, Japan and Russia.” This report summarizes current and planned aircraft programs in each of these countries and the potential impact of those programs on the commercial aerospace market.
Posted on October 5, 2009 by Scott Hamilton
Embraer fires warning over CSeries launch aid
Here we go, the first fall-out of the Airbus-Boeing trade Interim Report. Brazil (Embraer) complained to the European Union about launch aid by Canada to Bombardier for the CSeries and asked the EU to force Canada to cancel the package. Predictably, Canada invited Brazil to…do…something.
Posted on September 9, 2009 by Scott Hamilton