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
MAX impact on Boeing NMA beginning to emerge
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Introduction
May 2, 2019, © Leeham News: There was indication last week Boeing’s decision on whether to approve the New Midmarket Airplane program will slide.
CEO Dennis Muilenburg said on the company’s first quarter earnings call the focus is returning the grounded 737 MAX to service.
A decision on authorizing the sales force to offer the NMA for sale is ambiguous. For the first time, targeting 2025 for entry into service appears to be acknowledged as iffy.
The statements confirm LNA’s analysis and our reports that the 2025 EIS is unlike.
Summary
- Advanced manufacturing is key to NMA production, but all elements need to fall into place—a “production moonshot.”
- For more than a year, LNA and others predicted the NMA EIS in 2025 is not possible.
- Engines won’t be ready by 2025 EIS. See here and here from March 2018.
- Latest woes from CFM on the LEAP add to uncertainty; CFM is the favorite for NMA. See here.
- Engine selection by Boeing put off until after MAX problems solved, grounding lifted.
- Authority to Offer for sale at Paris Air Show unlikely and 2025 EIS now in doubt.
Impact of MAX grounding emerges with earnings reports
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Introduction
April 29, 2019, © Leeham News: With first quarter financial results beginning to be reported, the impact of the grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX is beginning to emerge.
Boeing 737 MAXes stored at Everett Paine Field. Photo by Jennifer Schuld.
The first out was from Boeing itself, followed by a few of the airlines that operated the MAX before it was grounded March 13.
Boeing reported the grounding cost it about $1bn, for just the two weeks the airplane has been on the ground.
Norwegian Air Shuttle, which was using the MAX on new trans-Atlantic services, lost millions of dollars.
American Airlines will take a $350m hit from the groundings.
Southwest Airlines surprised many with a stronger-than-expected first quarter despite having 34 MAXes on the ground and a cost of $200m.
Air Canada extended the removal of its MAX fleet from its schedules another month, to Aug. 1.
Summary
- JP Morgan doesn’t predict deliveries resuming until the fourth quarter.
- The investment bank sees 200 MAXes in inventory accumulating and cash losses of $1.5bn per month while the plane is grounded.
- Wall Street hopes that 2020 will be a normalized year.
- If simulator training is required by regulators before the MAX can return to service, JP Morgan estimates more than 4,400 pilots need to be trained.
Latest engine problem means NMA EIS slides
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Introduction
April 22, 2019, © Leeham News: If there remains any doubt that Boeing’s prospective New Midmarket Airplane (NMA) won’t be ready for entry into service (EIS) by 2025, it should be dispelled by now.
The grounding of the 737 MAX March 13, which is likely to continue well into the summer, will delay any launch of the program—should Boeing proceed.
The Board of Directors is unlikely to approve Authority to Offer (ATO) the NMA for sale as long as the cash flow for the MAX is outgoing and not in-coming.
Although this has its own impact on the NMA timing, it’s not the critical factor.
Last week, it was revealed that the CFM LEAP engine on the MAX (and the Airbus A321neo) has a problem called coking, which led to the contained engine failure of a Southwest Airlines MAX being ferried from Orlando (FL) to Victorville (CA) for the grounding of the Boeing airplane (see here and here). It’s the latest in a long line of engine maker problems with their current generation of powerplants.
This issue is unrelated to the MAX MCAS grounding. It also affects some engines on the A320neo family.
Summary
Airlines must change tactics to attract maintenance workers
#MROAM
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Introduction
April 18, 2019, © Leeham News: Airlines need to create a pleasing work environment even in the industrial atmosphere of “wrench turners” if they are going to attract millennials to become maintenance workers.
Boeing forecasts a need of more than 600,000 mechanics over the next 20 years.
Some airlines, like Delta, faces an aging workforce, which will produce a surge of retirements.
JetBlue, with a young workforce, faces the challenge of attracting young workers who find better paying jobs in other industries.
Even KLM found it has to change the work environment to attract young employees.
Here’s how their stepping up to these challenges.
Union asks Congress to intervene in Boeing inspection issue
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By Bryan Corliss
April 15, 2019, © Leeham News: As Boeing faces federal investigations, shareholder lawsuits, Congressional hearings – and possibly subpoenas – linked to the 737 MAX crashes, another issue flying low on the radar could further complicate the company’s relationship with the Federal Aviation Administration and the elected officials who oversee it.
The issue revolves around the company’s plan to end quality control inspections for several thousand tasks performed by Boeing mechanics in the factory.
That plan – first reported by The Seattle Times in January – involves the use of more “smart tools” to perform work more precisely so that inspections will no longer be required for thousands of tasks. Instead of doing quality checks 100% of the time, as Boeing inspectors have been doing for generations, inspectors will sample 1-in-100 tasks, or maybe less, Boeing executives told the newspaper.
Now, the union for inspectors whose work is going away is asking its influential supporters in Congress to intervene with the FAA. It wants a chance to show the agency data it says proves that the new process will lead to more downstream rework on the assembly line, more injured workers and more production delays.
Summary
- Borrowing from the auto business
- Union says bad decisions put deliveries at risk
- Boeing says new system brings down defects
Read more
Airlines show dramatic reductions in cancelations, squawks
#MROAM
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Introduction
April 11, 2019, © Leeham News: Airlines are showing dramatic reductions in canceled 
flights and aircraft maintenance squawks through its Skywise live diagnostics programs, the most recent of which was rolled out in the US with ultra-low-cost carrier Allegiant Air in January.
Skywise Health Monitoring is the latest program in the Skywise suite of services offered by Airbus to carriers around the world. Skywise Health Monitoring (SHM) joins Skywise Reliability Services (SRS) and Skywise Predictive Maintenance (SPM).
Airbus announced Allegiant’s participation yesterday at the Aviation Week MRO Americas conference in Atlanta (GA).
Summary
- Allegiant cites examples pinpointing one problem misreported, identifying a looming part failure before it happened.
- Delta Air Lines dramatically reduced maintenance cancellations.
- $850,000 in savings in one example.
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How will MAX recertification affect future airplanes?
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Introduction
April 8, 2019, © Leeham News: The certification process and cooperation between Boeing and the US Federal Aviation Administration is under a microscope, subject to international scrutiny, a Congressional hearing, an inspector’s general investigation and another one by the Department of Justice with a Grand Jury.
What is this going to mean for future aircraft programs? And to the MAX?
Summary
- Boeing 777X certification pace becomes an unknown. Analysts believe substantially longer time possible.
- What of the certification of the MAX 7 and 10?
- MAX’s future after grounding.
- Grounding may extend into June.
Green aircraft builder may need infusion of greenbacks
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By Bryan Corliss
April 4, 2019, © Leeham News: While one Western Washington electric aircraft company is charging forward with battery-powered flight, another may be encountering headwinds.
Zunum, which has announced plans to put a hybrid-electric-powered aircraft into the air before the year’s end, may need a cash infusion if it’s to stick to that time line.
Unlike MagniX – which announced March 26 a deal with Vancouver’s Harbour Air to start putting electric motors into the airline’s existing fleet of seaplanes – Bothell-based Zunum is pursuing a clean-sheet aircraft design.
Summary
- Electric plane builder Zunum plans to fly hybrid test aircraft this year.
- The company says it plans to announce a manufacturing site — or maybe an airframing partner — in 2020.
- Reports say the company needs more investor cash to avoid schedule slips.
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Returning the MAX to service
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Introduction
April 1, 2019, © Leeham News: Returning the Boeing 737 MAX to services following its grounding should reasonably be a straight-forward affair, if past groundings were examples.
But, to mix a metaphor, there are plenty of unchartered waters with this grounding that stand ready to complicate matters.
Bloomberg reported Saturday that Europe’s FAA equivalent, EASA, skipped last week’s Boeing meeting of 200 pilots and regulators.
Summary:
- US FAA is no longer the leader or gold standard.
- EASA, Transport Canada want their own reviews.
- China, the first to ground the MAX, also suspended plane-by-plane certification.
MCAS upgrade requires half-hour of pilot training
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Introduction
March 28, 2019, © Leeham News: Boeing 737 MAX pilots learning about the revised software upgrade to the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) will need a half hour of computer-based training (CBT), the company told the media yesterday in a briefing.
Pilots of the 737 NG who have not yet made the transition to the MAX also have to be trained on the MCAS now. Boeing did not specify if this will take longer than those already trained on the MAX.
- Related article: Boeing presents MCAS software fix details
Summary
- No estimate to MAX return to service.
- Waiting for investigations of the crashes.
- More information for pilots.