Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Leeham News and Analysis
- Boeing wants to remarket China’s airplanes. It’s costly and time consuming. April 28, 2025
- 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
The production cost trap for upstarts
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By Bjorn Fehrm
April 6, 2023, © Leeham News: The last five years have been among the busiest in aeronautical history, with announcements of new aircraft and VTOLs based on greener propulsion technologies. The public focus has been on the hurdle for these projects to achieve regulator certification, how long this will take, and how much it will cost. We have hundreds of experts publishing articles on the subject.
But there is another hurdle as large as certification for these projects: the initial production cost. It’s just that the knowledge about this more difficult-to-understand phase is poor among the experts. But, looking at history, the majority of new airliner entrants die during early production, not during development.
Why? We use our production cost model to explain.
Figure 1. Heart Aerospace ES-30; a typical startup project. Source: Heart Aerospace.
Summary:
• Startup projects fight to get the investments for development.
• Little do they know this is only halfway to success.
Examining the FAA’s Organization Designation Authority (ODA)
Part 2 of a Series
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By the Leeham News Team
April 3, 2023, © Leeham News: Organization Designation Authorization (ODA) has been a critical relationship between Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration. In the wake of the 737 MAX crisis, the FAA rescinded Boeing’s ODA. It was restored, but the FAA retains oversight.
The absence of ODAs continues to slow Boeing’s return to normalcy.
ODA: What is it, why it exists, and what is changing?
Long ago, when aircraft were far simpler than today, FAA inspectors would validate the airworthiness of products using well-defined existing bodies of knowledge. FAA engineers
could use sheet metal skills and their electrical and mechanical engineering backgrounds to monitor and assist in the certification of more and more complex products.
With the birth of the jet age, aerodynamics became much more complex and software was applied to airframes in the form of advanced avionics and fly-by-wire flight control programming.
The industry started to outpace the skills of the regulators and it got even more complex with the advent of composite structures. Things that weren’t on the radar of the regulations—and the regulators–became important as time went by.
Flammability standards for cabin and cockpit materials created a huge need for oversight. So did the increased cockpit automation and how the human interfaced with the machine.
The FAA fell behind, for a couple of reasons.
Bjorn’s Corner: New aircraft technologies. Part 6P. Fuselage manufacturing
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By Bjorn Fehrm
March 31, 2023, ©. Leeham News: This is a complementary article to Part 6. Fuselage manufacturing. It discusses in detail how to manufacture a non-circular fuselage that avoids fatigue problems.
MCAS, The Aircraft Certification Act and the unintended consequences of Congressional Intervention
First in a Series of Articles
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By the Leeham News team
March 30, 2023, © Leeham News: Boeing is suffering delays getting the 737-7, 737-10, and 777X certifications completed.
Airbus delayed the certification of the A321XLR over the design of its integral fuel tank. Boeing has gotten the brunt of the blame for its delays, a stance not without some merit. Airbus is fully responsible for the design and integration of the XLR fuel tank. But, unlike Boeing, less has been said about the certification delays of the XLR than the Boeing aircraft.
These delays may not be completely the fault of the manufacturers.
A brief history. We know that two 737 MAXes were lost due to the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) overpowering the flight crew’s ability to hand fly the airplane, although there were contributing factors. Congress got involved and demanded that the industry refocus on the safety of the flying public. The end result was the creation and passage of the Aircraft Certification, Safety and Accountability Act (ACSAA). This legislation mandated changes to how the Federal Aviation Administration oversees the manufacture of Transport Category Aircraft and set timelines for implementation.
We also need to remember that the industry is much larger than Boeing and Airbus. All manufacturers from those building agricultural aircraft and piston-powered helicopters and bizjets all the way through to Large Tier 1 subcontractors such as Spirit Aerospace and avionics manufacturers must respond to these changes. The Act affects everybody.
The addition of EICAS
We have seen references to the act and how it set a timeline for a monitoring program called Engine Indicating and Crew Alerting System, or EICAS, and its implementation. A deadline of last December was included in the ACSAA, adopted two years before. The inclusion of EICAS was adopted on the assumption Boeing would certify the MAX 7 and MAX 10 before the deadline. Exempting these two MAXes at the time was approved because the MAX 8 and MAX 9 were already certified without EICAS, and cockpit commonality was considered important among the four types.
But Boeing was unable to complete certification of the MAX 7 and MAX 10 in time. Steeped in controversy, Congress in January continued the exemption to September this year.
Certification by the deadline of the MAX 10, the last in the family, was always deemed a challenge because the -10 hadn’t entered flight testing at the time of the legislation’s approval. But the MAX 7 was well into its flight testing. People couldn’t understand why Boeing was unable to certify the MAX 7 before the end of last year.
An analysis by LNA lifts the veil on this mystery.
An uneven financial recovery among OEMs and Suppliers
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By Vincent Valery
Introduction
March 27, 2023, © Leeham News: In an article last year, LNA highlighted the divergence in the post-Covid-19 recovery among OEMs and select Tier 1 suppliers. Airbus had higher profits than before the Covid-19 pandemic, while all others lagged. Revenues were well below 2019 levels.
Commercial Aviation OEMs were severely impacted last year by supply chain disruptions. Airbus and Boeing ramped up production significantly slower than envisioned on all programs. The war in Ukraine and tighter financial conditions are complicating the situation further.
LNA collected financial information on the big three aircraft manufacturers and 10 major commercial aircraft suppliers to assess how quickly they recovered. There will also be an analysis of the numerous charges Airbus and Boeing have taken since 1999 through 2022.
Summary
- Significant differences among the three major aircraft OEMs;
- One engine OEM lagging;
- Some OEM suppliers are struggling financially;
- Twelve-digit accumulated charges at Airbus and Boeing combined.
Bjorn’s Corner: New aircraft technologies. Part 5P. Optimal fuselage
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By Bjorn Fehrm
March 24, 2023, ©. Leeham News: This is a complementary article to Part 5. Optimal fuselage. It discusses in detail the optimal fuselage for an airliner with 250 seats using different architectures and building methods.
A Chinese intervention in Ukraine would kill its aerospace industry
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By Bryan Corliss
Commentary
March 23, 2023, © Leeham News – Chinese leader Xi Jinping flew into Moscow this week for a three-day summit with accused Russian war criminal Vladimir Putin.
They wined and dined. They talked publicly about economic accords and oil pipelines and pledged mutual support. In private, Putin almost certainly made a plea for stepped-up Chinese support for his faltering invasion of Ukraine. They made bold statements about banding together to oppose the hegemony of the West, which has united against Russia with sanctions including bans on providing Russia with the basic technology it needs to build weapons.
And at the end of it all, on Wednesday, Xi walked up the jet stairs to his Air China 747, built by Boeing in Everett, America. He turned and waved, and then flew back to Beijing.
That moment, with Xi standing in front of the massive American-made jet, may just illustrate China’s conundrum right now: Xi, by all accounts, wants nothing more than to shove aside the post-Cold War order that has confined his nation from global Great Power status. An alliance with Putin’s Russia could be a key step toward that.
And Xi, as he looks around the interior of his jumbo jet, has to be acutely aware that China remains dependent upon the Western democracies for software, computer chips, and – critically – aircraft.
- War has created headaches for aerospace
- Chinese tensions are bigger issue
- China loses in a proxy war with West
- Boeing’s China business is effectively frozen
- Airbus in China may also be at risk
Regulatory filings spell out key 2023 challenges for Boeing, Airbus
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By Bryan Corliss
March 20, 2023, © Leeham News – In a filing with federal regulators, The Boeing Co. acknowledges it struggled to stabilize 737 MAX production rates at 31 a month last year.
However, the company is sticking to that and expects a “gradual” increase in 737 rates this year – dependent upon the ability of key suppliers to keep up.
Those are some of the takeaways from Boeing’s annual report, filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this year.
The reports, which are required under U.S. law for publicly traded companies, include much of the fine print that isn’t included in typical earnings releases and calls, including detailed discussions of the risks companies face.
The filing doesn’t contain any shocking revelations but does shed more light on how Boeing is coping with the challenges facing the industry: workforce recruitment and retention in a globally tight labor market, supply change management challenges, inflation, and geopolitical turmoil in key markets including China and Russia.
Reports also mirror information provided by Airbus in regulatory filings in the Netherlands, where the company is registered.
The filings paint a picture in which 2023 will be an important year for both OEMs as they try to recover from a series of serious setbacks.
Summary
- MAX rates could go up; Airbus backs off
- Supply chain a factor for both
- Boeing finding workers; Airbus raised pay
- Geopolitical tensions affect industry
Bjorn’s Corner: New aircraft technologies. Part 4P. Fuselage trades
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March 17, 2023, ©. Leeham News: This is a complementary article to New aircraft technologies. Part 4. Fuselage trades. It discussed in detail the trades involved in designing a fuselage of an airliner with 250 seats using different architectures.
Embraer deliveries surge; executives proclaim rebound from Covid, failed merger
By Bryan Corliss
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March 13, 2023, © Leeham News — Embraer executives said last week that the company is on a flight path to growth after weathering two major storms in 2020.
“As we have said, since 2020, the 2021 and 2022 years would be dedicated to the business recovery after two simultaneous crises – the pandemic and the end of the Boeing deal – and the focus will be on growth from 2023,” Embraer CEO Francisco Gomes Neto said Friday.
“We can now state we have fulfilled what was promised,” he continued. “The business turnaround was completed in 2022, and we are ready to start a new growth phase.”
Embraer still faces “supply chain challenges this year,” he acknowledged, “but we are optimistic about the company’s future in terms of revenue growth and profitability.”
Neto made the declaration as his company reported delivering 80 regional and executive jets in the fourth quarter of 2022, which was roughly half of the total deliveries for the year.
The company reported earnings before interest and taxes of US $166.2 million for the quarter, which was 196% better than its earnings in the same quarter of 2021.
- Embraer sees orders recovery
- China is one of two promising markets
- Business jet market ‘very robust’
- Continued investment in decarbonization