Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Leeham News and Analysis
- Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 19. April 25, 2025
- How good is the C929? Part 2. April 24, 2025
- Boeing First Quarter Results Update: China is 10% of the backlog, with 500 in “Unidentified” April 24, 2025
- Boeing First Quarter Results: Tariffs, Return flights, $10.55bn asset sale April 23, 2025
- RTX Q1 2025 Earnings: GTF Talk Takes A Back Seat To Tariffs April 22, 2025
Irkut MC-21 rolls out
June 9, 2016: Irkut rolled out its challenger to the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737-800/8
MC -21 rollout. Photo: AIN Online via Google images.
yesterday the MC-21-300.
The new airplane is powered by either the Pratt & Whitney GTF or a Russian engine. A report from a Russian-sponsored media site is here.
LNC previously published an analysis of the economics of the MC-21 behind our paywall. We’ve opened up the first of four parts to all readers here.
UTC media day 2: GTF hits 99.5% dispatch reliability rates
June 7, 2016: The new Pratt & Whitney Geared Turbo Fan, on seven Airbus A320neos,
Bob Leduc, president of Pratt & Whitney.
have achieved more than 2,000 revenue cycles with no returns or rejected take-offs, says Bob Leduc, president of Pratt & Whitney. The engines have a 99.5% dispatch reliability. The last time this level was achieved was with the introduction of the Boeing 777, which at the same point had a 100% dispatch reliability rate.
UTC media day 2: PW addresses Under-Performing supply chain
Day 2 of the United Technologies Corp (UTC) Media Days is focused on Pratt & Whitney.
June 7, 2016: Pratt & Whitney officials today clarified an eye-popping statement yesterday by Greg Hayes, CEO of parent United Technologies, that 44% of the suppliers on the new Geared Turbo Fan engine were performing to goals.
UTC media day 1: Intelligent aircraft, aftermarket support
June 6, 2016: Intelligent aircraft–systems that communicate more fully within the aircraft
Mauro Atalla, UTC Aerospace Systems
and between the aircraft and the ground–is increasing and it requires more and more power to achieve, says Mauro Atalla, vice president, engineering and technology-sensors and integrated systems of UTC Aerospace Systems.
Intelligent sensors on an aircraft have been reduced in the number on board an aircraft even as the needs greatly increase, he said. There has been a reduction of more than 50%, providing a 50% weight reduction.
UTC media day 1: UTAS, twice the size of any other aerospace systems company
Note: United Technologies Corp (UTC) is holding its annual Media Days today and tomorrow. We’re providing reporting from the event. This is the first time in our long participation that UTC Aerospace Systems is presenting. UTAS is a major supplier and service provider to all the airframe OEMs.
June 6, 2016: UTC Aerospace Systems is just four years old, following mergers with
Dave Gitlin, CEO of UTC Aerospace Systems (UTAS).
Hamilton Sundstrand and Goodrich–the largest in aerospace history, says Dave Gitlin, president of UTC Aerospace Systems.
UTAS provides electrical power and bleed air systems, engine, starters, power systems, all the circulating fans on the Boeing 787, monitoring systems and much more. Evacuation slides, the Ram Air Turbines, landing gear, flaps and slat control systems, brakes and thrust reversers.
Airbus aircraft programs in review
By Bjorn Fehrm in Hamburg
Introduction
May 31, 2016, ©. Leeham Co: Airbus went through a complete review of all their aircraft programs as part of their yearly briefing for media in Hamburg today. A lot was said regarding the status for the different programs by Airbus CEO Farbice Bregier, its COO customers John Leahy and Executive VP Strategy and Marketing Kiran Rao.
Figure 1. Most recent A350 delivery was to Cathay Pacific. source: Airbus.
The briefing was given against a backdrop of weak orders and deliveries for the first five months of the year. Both Bregier and Leahy said, “This is to be expected, it’s not sustainable that we have Book-to-Bill ratios (orders vs. deliveries) of over 1.5 or even close to two for many consecutive years. We have a backlog of 6,700 aircraft that customers expect us to deliver and they have little appetite to order new aircraft when they can earliest get them by 2021 at the earliest.
“We are now in a period of focus on deliveries and we can expect and be happy with a book to bill ratio of around one for the coming years. The extraordinary backlog also justifies our decision to increase production to 60 units per month for our A320 single aisle program.”
Here follows what was said for each of the programs.
Airbus will recover 2016 production
By Bjorn Fehrm in Hamburg
Introduction
May 30, 2016, ©. Leeham Co:
Airbus has got off to a slow start for A320neo and A350 production this year. The Airbus Hamburg and Toulouse airfields are filled with A320neo aircraft waiting for engines and the A350 Final Assembly Line (FAL) in Toulouse has 40 aircraft in different states of readiness but very few are being delivered. Out of target of 50 A350 delivered in 2016, a total of nine have been delivered to customers so far.
Airbus COO Tom Williams. Source: Airbus
“We have been making gliders for some time now,” said Airbus COO Tom Williams in an Airbus briefing in Hamburg,”but that is about to finish. We are getting delivery of engines from our partner Pratt & Whitney, which has a fix for a prolonged starting time and we have fixed other issues for the A320neo with software updates and changed procedures”.
“When it comes to A350 we have enough aircraft in final production ready for customer delivery after cabin installations,” Williams said. “Now we just got to work through some persistent supplier problems for the cabin side.” Read more
Mitsubishi’s MRJ test flying making good progress
By Bjorn Fehrm in Tokyo
May 18, 2016, ©. Leeham Co: Mitsubishi Aircraft Corporation (MAC) announced that their MRJ flight test program is now going well. Mitsubishi presented the status update at the International Society of Transport Aircraft Traders conference (ISTAT 2016 Asia) in Tokyo.
Figure 1. Mitsubishi Regional Jet (MRJ) during flight testing. Source: Mitsubishi.
Mitsubishi Aircraft rocked the confidence of the market with announcing a delay in their program of over a year before Christmas. At the same time, MAC also announced that they will rebuild their test aircraft as they had seen that the original design did not meet ultimate load criteria.
As presented in one of my Friday Corners, that announcement was being too forthcoming. Other OEMs would not have informed the market of the minor modifications needed to make the aircraft able to withstand ultimate load (150% of the highest load the aircraft should ever see in service).
MAC’s Director of Strategic Marketing, Hideyuki Kamiya, gave an update of the flight test program at the conference and later answered some specific questions from LNC on the sidelines of the conference. Read more
Pontifications: Derivatives at Boeing
By Scott Hamilton
May 9, 2016, © Leeham Co.: Last week proved to be significant when the CEO of The Boeing Co. and the head of the 737 MAX program each said the company is looking at revising its smallest member of the family, the MAX 7, and potentially enlarging the biggest member, the MAX 9.
Neither prospect was news. Jon Ostrower of The Wall Street Journal revealed the prospect of what he called the MAX 7.5, a slightly larger airplane than the current MAX 7. The idea of an airplane larger than the MAX 9, based on the MAX 9, was floated when Jim McNerney was still CEO.
What was news is that for the first time, the Boeing CEO and the head of the MAX program went on record essentially admitting the MAX line isn’t well positioned against Airbus after all. Or, on the lower end, to Bombardier.