June 22, 2015, c. Leeham Co. The Paris Air Show was largely as expected, with a few small surprises. Boeing did better than expected via-a-vis Airbus, actually leading slightly in firm orders and tied in orders-and-options going into Thursday. This is virtually never the case, particularly at the Paris Air Show, Airbus’ “home” turf. At the same time, some Wall Street analysts noted the firm orders fell below expectations. I’m not especially concerned about whether an announcement was firm or a commitment, because the latter typically firm up, if not within the current calendar year then usually in the next. Note, for example, Boeing announced the launch of the 777X program at the 2013 Dubai Air Show was some 200 commitments, or thereabouts, but the orders didn’t firm until 2014. Airbus announced a commitment for 250 A320s from Indigo in 2014 and it will likely be firmed up this year.
June 18, 2015, c. Leeham Co: Airbus traditionally wraps up the Paris Airshow with a Thursday review of their orders during the week. We have the major events captured in pictures, describing what was announced during the week. Boeing does not end the air show with a similar event.
Airbus President and CEO, Fabrice Brégier, opened the wrap up by saying that he was perhaps a little to conservative in the first briefing Monday where he said that he expected Airbus to book “a couple of hundred orders” during the show. In the end it became 421 orders/commitments, the fourth best result during air shows in Airbus history.
John Slattery, chief commercial officer, Embraer Commercial Aircraft. Photo via Google images.
June 17, 2015, Paris Air Show, c. Leeham Co. With focus, as always, on Airbus and Boeing, and an airplane that neither exists nor is about to any time in the near-term (the Middle of the Market aircraft), little attention was paid to Embraer, currently the third of the Big Four commercial aircraft companies.
Embraer finished the Air Show (which essentially ends June 18 for the industrial sector), with 50 orders for the E1 and E2 E-Jets.
John Slattery, the chief commercial officer, said the company is ending the first half of the year with 125 firm orders for the two platforms. EMB now has 70 customers, headed for its target of 100 by 2017, and an important new customer joined the ranks, albeit through a used airplane transaction. Delta Air Lines will purchase 20 E-190s once a new pilot contract is ratified. The airplanes will be flown by Delta pilots for the mainline carrier, not one of its regional partners.
By Bjorn Fehrm
Introduction
June 16, 2015, Paris Air Show, c. Leeham Co: On the second day of the Paris Air show we visited several Boeing briefings. The first was Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA) update with BCA President and CEO Ray Conner. He elected to not do the usual slide show speech as all slides were available as handout. Instead the whole session was turned into a Q&A, which was good. All hot topics were discussed as questions from the audience. As many were also covered in Boeing’s next session, BCA development update, I will handle these there.
The topics that did not come up in the second briefing were Boeing’s Middle of the Market (MOM) studies for a new mid-range aircraft with 200-250 seats and Boeing’s view on the VLA market. Let’s take MOM first. Conner confirmed that Boeing now has identified that there is a market of around 1.000 aircraft over 10 years which is not served by a suitable aircraft. He dismissed this market being covered by Boeing’s 737 MAX 9 or the Airbus A321LR, both being too small and not having enough range. Range requirement from the many airlines they had visited over the last year was 4,500-5,000nm. The MAX 9 and A321LR have advertised ranges of 4,000nm or less.
Conner said the next step is now to study if Boeing can build an aircraft to serve this market at the price required by the market. “We are early in the studies and don’t expect any concrete decision soon.” He could also not answer if any MOM aircraft parts or technologies could be shared with an up-and-coming replacement for the 737 MAX.
Conner said the Very Large Aircraft (VLA) sector “is a small market. We don’t see that people really want to travel to a point for gathering, then go to the next hub together, only to start spreading out again. People want to go direct to their destination. We are happy with serving this market with our 747-8, especially as part of the small market is freighters.”
June 16, 2015, Paris Air Show, c. Leeham Co. Dueling forecasts between Airbus and Boeing became a bit of a sideshow yesterday, with the differing projections for the Very Large Aircraft (VLA) market coming up at the Airbus Global Market Forecast press conference and in our interview with Kiran Rao, EVP Marketing and Strategy for Airbus.
John Leahy, chief operating officer for customers, continued to project a 20-year demand for the VLA-Passenger sector at 1,200. Boeing’s forecast for the VLA sector, including freighters, is 540.
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Introduction
June 3, 2015, c. Leeham Co. Sales of widebody jets have slowed going into the Paris Air Show in under two weeks. Airbus sold six A330-200s, four A330-200Fs and
Boeing hopes to make a sale to Emirates Airlines later this year for the 787-10, giving a boost to this program and acing out Airbus in the process.
25 A330-900s, or 35 widebodies. No A350s. No A380s. Boeing sold three 747-8s, one 767, 25 777 Classics and (net) 34 787s, or 63 widebodies.
But we expect sales to pick up for the second half of the year, propelled by what appears to be enticing hints by Airbus that it may have finally achieved sales from China for its long-stalled A330ceo Regional airliner.
But the big prize, the Emirates Airlines order for 50-100 Airbus A350s or Boeing 787-10s (the number varies), is likely a late-in-the-year deal. There are a couple of others of decent size being competed as well.
And then there is the prospect of the launch of the Airbus A380neo.
Summary