Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
- Privatizing Air Traffic Control: Why Canada’s Success Story Won’t Work Here
- Safran hails ‘outstanding’ 2025; prepares for Airbus ramp-up
- Bjorn’s Corner: Faster aircraft development. Part 27. Where Speed-Up gets Tough.
- Spain becomes fourth country to join Aero Excellence initiative to improve supply chain
- BWB hopefuls: JetZero aims for MOM sector; Natilus raises $28m for heart of the market
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
737NG vs A320neo: an interesting chess game
Update, Dec. 13: FlightGlobal has this interview with Ryanair and its critique of the NEO.
Original Post:
The (London) Financial Times has this interview with Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Jim Albaugh in which he says there is no compelling reason now to re-engine the 737.
Boeing believes the newly announced Airbus A320neo family merely brings the legacy A320 family to parity with the 737 or at most provides only a 3%-4% direct operating cost advantage to the NEO which can be matched by yet more refinements to the 737.
Airbus refutes Boeing’s conclusions but won’t release its own numbers, regarding them as proprietary. But in a new study, The Business Case for the Bombardier CSeries, by AirInsight, with which we are affiliated, AirInsight’s independent analysis concludes the NEO generally has at best a slight advantage over the 737-700 and 737-800–but nothing to shout about.
Posted on December 10, 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
AirInsight on 787, 747-8 delays; A321 NEO
AirInsight has several commentaries about the news last week of new delays in the Boeing 787 and 747-8 programs; and a discussion about the prospective A321 New Engine Option. The main site is here.
Posted on August 30, 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
RR speaks out on NEO vs new airplanes
Rolls-Royce speaks out on its views of Airbus and Boeing going with a new engine option for their A320-737 class airplanes in this long Wall Street Journal article.
We’ll make two observations:
Posted on August 19, 2010 by Scott Hamilton
Farnborough/Tuesday
Updated, Wednesday 05:00 BST
We’ve updated this posting after all the text with orders completed through Day 2,
Original Post:
Tuesday will be another day where orders are expected to be announced. See our Monday posting, updated at 4pm for this information.
Pratt & Whitney
We will be attending a breakfast hosted by Pratt & Whitney; perhaps we can get some information about the issues Qatar reports in connection with its potential CSeries order. Or perhaps not. OEMs are loath to talk about customers. But we shall see.
Posted on July 19, 2010 by Scott Hamilton
Farnborough/Sunday-EADS
We’re at the Farnborough Air Show and on Saturday attended the day-long EADS media briefings. We filed reports exclusively for KIRO TV (CBS) in Seattle. These stories are:
- Airbus predicts 130+ orders at the air show;
- Leahy says Airbus has to get current programs right before proceding with decision whether to re-engine the A320 family; decision due in 4th quarter;
- Boeing Defense facing growing competition from EADS;
- EADS sees “fair and open” competition for KC-X;
- EADS chief raps “unfair” WTO.
These stories are below the jump.
Separately, word leaked from Farnborough that Boeing will get an order fo 20 777s, but this is a swap from the failing DAE Capital of Dubai. Here is this story.
Posted on July 17, 2010 by Scott Hamilton
Embraer at crossroads: Aviation Week
Aviation Week has a good piece entitled “Embraer at Crossroads,” that discusses how the company evolved from nothingness to a major player in the industry. Faced with a threat from Bombardier’s CSeries and emerging competition from China and elsewhere, Embraer has to decide what it is going to do.
Although Bombardier’s CSeries continues to faces challenges, AvWeek makes it clear that the CSeries and Pratt & Whitney’s GTF engine are influencing decisions pending by Airbus, Boeing, Embraer and airlines.
Posted on May 8, 2010 by Scott Hamilton
Bombardier lays foundation for Chinese CSeries order
Bombardier has positioned itself for a major CSeries order in China with the announcement on March 30 of a $3.85bn financing deal with a Chinese financial institution.
CDB will provide the financing for Bombardier’s Q400 turboprop, the CRJ and the new CSeries. Bombardier already contracts with the growing Chinese aerospace industry for major fuselage sections and other components for all three of these airplanes.
Posted on April 2, 2010 by Scott Hamilton