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Feb. 15, 2018, © Leeham Co.: Airbus’ plans to respond to Boeing’s prospective New Midrange Aircraft, aka 797, is a mystery to one of the industry’s leading aviation consultants.
Richard Aboulafia of the Teal Group notes that Airbus’ research and development investment overtly disappears after 2018, with the introduction into service of the A350-1000 and the A319neo.
Aboulafia spoke at Day 2 of the Pacific Northwest Aerospace Alliance (PNAA) conference in Lynnwood (WA).
He’s long compared R&D spending between Airbus and Boeing, often praising the former for its level of investment and criticizing the latter for lagging.
Now, Airbus’ level of spending is a question mark while Boeing’s is a comfortable level compared with revenue, Aboulafia says.
Feb. 13, 2018, © Leeham Co.: Skeptics who question Boeing’s market demand forecast of 4,000 airplanes for the New Midrange Aircraft aren’t thinking “outside the box,” says Randy Tinseth, VP Marketing.
Tinseth heads up the team that prepares Boeing’s annual Current Market Outlook for the next 20 years.
Boeing’s CMO forecasts a need for about 5,900 small twin-aisle aircraft (fewer than 300 seats but larger than single-aisle airplanes of more than 200 seats). About 4,000 of these are for the NMA.
Others, including Airbus, Pratt & Whitney, Rolls-Royce and some key suppliers see the market as between 2,000 and 2,500. Leeham Co.’s own estimate is 2,300.
Feb. 13, 2018, © Leeham Co.: A Boeing official today dismissed concerns that expanding Boeing Global Services, with additional controls on aftermarket support for commercial airplanes it builds, might negatively impact potential sales.
Several airlines, including Delta, Singapore, Lufthansa, Air France-KLM and some Chinese carriers, operate their own MRO facilities that not only maintain their own fleets, but offer services to other airlines.
Kevin Michaels, president of the consulting firm AeroDynamics, expressed concern that Boeing’s tighter control of aftermarket parts is already leading to customer satisfaction issues at some airlines. He also said Boeing might lose airplane sales to Airbus if it is unwilling to grant MRO rights to the maintenance facilities of those carriers that operate them.
Michaels made his remarks at the annual conference of the Pacific Northwest Aerospace Alliance.
March 14, 2016, © Leeham Co.: Airbus is presenting a new edginess in the long-running war of words with Boeing, adopting a tactic Boeing has used for years to make its case.
The European manufacturer has never been shy about getting in its digs at Boeing, but generally Boeing’s messaging—years in the making and steadfastly adhered to—has had more sticking power than Airbus’.
March 7, 2016, © Leeham Co.: The public relations battle between Airbus and Boeing was on full display at the annual conference last week of the International Society of Transport Aircraft Trading (ISTAT) in Phoenix (AZ).
As usual, the respective officials of the two companies used numbers to make the case that their airplanes sold more than the other guy.
4 March 2016, ©. Leeham Co: There is a saying, “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.” The same goes for making successful Turbofans to commercial aircraft.
At the recent Pacific Northwest Aerospace Alliance 2016 sub-supplier conference in Seattle, GE, Rolls-Royce and Pratt & Whitney all talked about their latest engine projects and the technology development that was critical to their success.
The engines they talked about, the GE9x, Rolls-Royce Advance and Pratt & Whitney’s Geared Turbofan, can all be characterised as the best of breed for their intended use but they could not be more different in how their level of excellence is achieved.
It made for interesting listening. Here’s the gist of what was told.
Feb. 11, 2016, © Leeham Co. “We bought more than $40bn worth of stuff from suppliers last year. We delivered 762 airplanes last year and we could not have done that without the suppliers.
“We’re going through a shift…and through a global dogfight,” Kent Fisher, VP-GM of Supplier Management or Boeing, told the Pacific Northwest Aerospace Alliance (PNAA) conference today.
Boeing launches PFS 2.0
Update, 0815 PDT July 7: Boeing Corporate Headquarters responded to our questions. The transcript has been added to the article below.
July 7, 2016, © Leeham Co.: Boeing’s controversial Partnering for Success (PFS) drew ire from its suppliers and scorn from observers for its heavy-handed, threatening cost-cutting demands: shave your costs to Boeing 15%-25% or be put on our own no-fly list of companies that we won’t do business with.
Boeing wasn’t shy about who it targeted, or punished. Even supply-chain giant United Technologies was placed on Boeing’s no-fly list when it balked at the onerous demand.
Now Boeing is moving forward with PFS 2.0, a second round of demands.
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Posted on July 7, 2016 by Scott Hamilton
air force tanker, Boeing, Leeham News and Comment, Pacific Northwest Aerospace Alliance, United Technologies
747-8, 787, Boeing, Dave Gitlin, Héroux-Devtek, Jim McNerney, KC-46A, Michel Merluzeau, Pacific Northwest Aerospace Alliance, Partnering for Success, PFS 1.0, PFS 2.0, PNAA, Richard Aboulafia, United Technologies Aerosystems, UTAS