Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Leeham News and Analysis
- Hopes for 1Q financial progress turns into bumpy ride for Boeing April 21, 2025
- Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 18. April 18, 2025
- Natilus: Composite BWB, entry-into-service by 2029, 570 on order April 17, 2025
- China bans Boeing, US parts imports in tariff war April 15, 2025
- Boeing welcomes COMAC competition as Asia-Pacific demand soars April 15, 2025
Pontifications: Horizon’s plan to focus on single fleet type appears a blow to TPNG hopes
March 29, 2022, © Leeham News: Alaska Air Group announced last week that its subsidiary, Horizon Air, will retire 32 De Havilland Canada (DHC) Dash-8-400s by the end of 2023. The regional airline will go to a single fleet type, the Embraer E175-E1. AAG owns some of the 175s. Regional partner SkyWest owns and operates others.
By Scott Hamilton
The plan adds to the struggles of DHC to return to service -400s stored at the start of the COVID pandemic. At the end of 2021, there were more than 150 stored. As of last week, this number was down to 142, according to the ch-aviation data base. Another 17 were in maintenance. There were 398 in service. The number stored represents 25% of the -400 fleet.
Consolidating to a single fleet type doesn’t bode well for Embraer’s efforts to win Alaska/Horizon as a launch customer for its new TPNG. This advanced turboprop, proposed in 70- and 90-seat versions, has engines mounted on pods at the rear in the latest concept shown to the industry. A new engine will replace the aging but reliable Pratt & Whitney PW-series used on the Dash 8 and ATR-42/72. P&W, GE and Rolls-Royce are developing a new generation engine.
Embraer wants to launch the program this year with a proposed entry into service of 2027.
Pontifications: From the aviation perspective, there’s something in China to watch
March 21, 2022, © Leeham News: Eyes are focused on Ukraine and the Russian War. In our corner of the world, commercial aviation, the stakeholders follow the fallout from the war: sanctions placed on Russia which affect overflights, supply chains, oil to Europe (fuel), and Russia’s confiscation of about $10bn worth of airliners from Western lessors and lenders.
By Scott Hamilton
But there is another drama playing out on the other side of the world, too. This one involves China and one of its commercial aviation companies, AVIC.
AVIC is a major aerospace company in China. It also has a variety of none-aerospace companies. It’s one of these that caught our eye last week.
The Wall Street Journal on March 14 reported that AVIC subsidiaries involved in solar energy filed for bankruptcy to avoid an $85m judgment after allegedly absconding with intellectual property from two US companies. The firm had to settle for 30 cents on the dollar.
It’s another example of China companies simply ignoring international IP laws.
Pontifications: The soup du jour
March 14, 2022, © Leeham News: You might call it the soup du jour.
By Scott Hamilton
EcoAviation is all over the place at aviation conferences these days. It was a key topic at last October’s Annual General Meeting of the International Air Transport Association (IATA). Likewise at last month’s annual conference of the Pacific Northwest Aerospace Alliance (PNAA). EcoAviation also was an element of the Speed News conference in Los Angeles early this month and at another event the following week. Investor Day events now routinely include ecoAviation discussion.
This is all well and good, but at last, some key members of the industry are putting caution and realism to the pie-in-the-sky stuff that is sucking up investment like the Dot Com era a few decades ago. Only a few ideas and technologies will be successful.
Pontifications: Ukraine impact on commercial aviation
By Scott Hamilton
Feb. 28, 2022, © Leeham News: The clouds are very dark over Ukraine today. The unprovoked invasion of Ukraine by an international autocratic lying amoral thug is horrible. What the implications are for neighboring European countries, the greater Europe, the US, and the rest of the world won’t be fully understood for months.
But reality is reality, and LNA’s focus on commercial aviation must look at things from this perspective—narrow as it is in the context of human tolls underway in Ukraine now. In the dark cloud of the Ukraine crisis, we must look at what the impacts might be on commercial aviation.
Pontifications: Advice for Boeing in the coming KC-Y campaign
Part 6: The KC-X competition from Boeing’s perspective
By Scott Hamilton
Feb 21, 2022, © Leeham News: Jim Albaugh, the former president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes and of Boeing’s defense unit, retired from the company in 2012. He oversaw the first competitive bid at the defense unit for the US Air Force KC-X refueling tanker. That was lost to Northrop Grumman-EADS (Airbus) in 2009.
As CEO of BCA, he oversaw commercial efforts to get Boeing’s cost down on the 767-200ER, which formed the basis for what became the KC-46A tanker. Defense won this round against a solo EADS bid. Boeing’s winning price was about 10% below the EADS bid for its A330-based MRTT.
Years removed from Boeing but nevertheless an interested observer with experience on the losing and winning bids, Albaugh has some observations and advice as Boeing prepared to compete against Lockheed Martin-Airbus for the KC-Y campaign that already has unofficially begun.
Pontifications: Rerunning the KC-X campaign as Technically Acceptable, Lowest Price process
Part 5 in a Series: the Boeing perspective in the last KC-X campaign
Feb. 14, 2022, © Leeham News: After the Government Accountability Office (GAO) upheld Boeing’s protest over the US Air Force contract award to Northrop Grumman-EADS, the parties regrouped to consider whether or how to compete for the KC-X contract again.
By Scott Hamilton
Boeing was discouraged after the Northrop win. According to press reports at the time, US Rep. Norm Dicks, a Democrat from Bremerton (WA) since retired, encouraged Boeing to make another bid. The US Air Force recast the new procurement to a pass-fail process on the requirements, emphasizing the price. The process was known as Technically Acceptable, Lowest Price, or TALP. Northrop decided to drop out. EADS, despite concluding the odds were long that it could win, went ahead.
In September 2009, the Air Force began the new procurement process. The same month, Jim Albaugh moved from Boeing’s defense unit, where he had been president and CEO, to Boeing Commercial Airplanes, in the same position. Although no longer involved day-to-day in the KC-X campaign, Albaugh nevertheless was in a good position to recall how Boeing approached this round.
Pontifications: KC-X aerial tanker competition becomes a pass-fail RFP
Part 4: The Boeing perspective
By Scott Hamilton
Feb. 7, 2022, © Leeham News: After Boeing lost to Northrop Grumman-EADS for the KC-X US Air Force tanker contract, Boeing filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
The Air Force, Boeing complained, gave Northrop extra credit for the larger A330 MRTT’s fuel capacity and range. This possibility had not been in the Request for Proposals. Boeing, therefore, felt its tanker, based on the 767-200ER airframe, was properly sized for the USAF requirements.
The GAO upheld Boeing’s protest. For the third time, the Air Force now had to issue an RFP and run another competition.
Northrop decided to sit this one out. But, as previously reported in the Sean O’Keefe series of the Airbus perspective, Airbus elected to bid again.
This time, the RFP was tightened. It took a Pass-Fail approach.
Pontifications: “The mother of the last pilot on the 707 tanker hasn’t been born yet”
Part 3 of the Boeing focus for the USAF Aerial Refueling Tanker
Jan. 31, 2022, © Leeham News: Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States, Boeing offered the US Air Force a lease deal for 100 aerial refueling tankers based on the 767-200.
By Scott Hamilton
The concept of leasing tankers had been floated before. Boeing at one point proposed creating a 747-based tanker and leasing it to the Air Force. The idea went nowhere, but this one gained traction.
The leasing concept formed just before Jim Albaugh arrived at IDS, but he was president as it progressed and through the subsequent competition, called KC-X, against Northrop Grumman-EADS (Airbus) after the lease deal was canceled.
“You go back in history, and it started out with the need for the Air force to replace the 707s which were their tanker fleet for a long time, and they were getting old,” recalls Albaugh, the CEO of Boeing’s Integrated Defense Systems unit at the time. IDS is now called Boeing Defense, Space and Security (BDS).
Pontifications: A retrospective of the KC-X refueling tanker competition from Boeing’s perspective
Part 2 of the Boeing focus for the USAF Aerial Refueling Tanker
Jan. 24, 2022, © Leeham News: Jim Albaugh was president of Boeing Integrated Defense System (IDS), now known as Boeing Defense, Space and Security (BDS) during the competition for the US Air Force’s KC-X program.
By Scott Hamilton
After 9/11 (2001), Boeing was reeling as US airlines canceled or deferred orders in the aftermath of the terror attacks in New York City and Washington (DC). Terrorists hijacked four airplanes (all Boeing, as it turned out) operated by American and United airlines. Then, US carriers dominated the world market as customers for Boeing and Airbus. Boeing was disproportionately affected, as it was the USA’s two biggest airlines that were victims of the terror attacks.
Pontifications: COTS and the KC-46A Aircraft Production Systems
Part 1 in a Boeing series about the USAF refueling tanker
By the Leeham News Team
January 17, 2022, © Leeham News: COTS is an acronym meaning Commercial Off the Shelf. It’s often a requirement for certain types of aircraft to be used by the US Air Force.
The title is a bit misleading in that in most cases, there is no directly usable off-the-shelf product, but instead, a jumping-off point that saves a tremendous amount of development. In aircraft procurement, many things have been bought this way. The advantage to the Air Force is that they get a known flyable aircraft that is for the most part debugged and has an operational history that allows the Air Force to estimate the maintenance burden and training requirements. It shaves years off the acquisition process and can be a very cost-effective way to gain new capabilities.