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Oct. 5, 2017, © Leeham Co.: Airbus is gearing up to increase the production rate of the A350 from 2018’s planned 10/mo to 13/mo, perhaps as early as the following year, LNC has learned.
The move follows Boeing’s announcement in September that it will increase the production of the 787 from the current 12/mo to 14/mo in 2019.
Airbus is producing the A330 at a rate of 6/mo.
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Introduction
Oct. 2, 2017, © Leeham Co., Grapevine (TX): American Airlines officials dodged commenting about the specifics of the Boeing-Bombardier trade dispute when asked about it at the investors/media day last week in this Dallas suburb.
Instead, the general counsel, Steve Johnson, offered up only a general statement supporting the Trump Administration’s hard line on trade.
The reason for this generality is obvious: American, along with Delta Air Lines and United Airlines, is engaged in its own trade war and needs support from the Administration.
AA, DL and UA are battling Big Three airlines from the Middle East over being subsidized and abusing Open Skies treaties. The US carriers want Trump to knock down the ME3, Emirates Airlines, Qatar Airways and Etihad Airways.
Oddly, no question was asked of the American officials about the current state of the battle during the day.
LNC asked American CEO Doug Parker about the issue following the event, however.
By Bjorn Fehrm
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September 28, 2017, © Leeham Co.: Airbus is working on increasing the range of the larger variant of the A330neo to 7,000nm. The present version, A330-900, flies 287 passengers 6,550nm, according to Airbus.
The range increase, which comes about from a take-off weight increase, is designed to make the A330-900 more of a competitor to the best-selling Boeing 787-9.
But the Airbus 7,000nm is not comparable to the 787-9’s 7,635nm with 290 passengers. The companies disagree on most principles on how to measure an airliner’s maximum range.
We use our aircraft model to weed out the differences and tell what is the comparable capabilities of the new A330-900neo variant compared with its main competitor, 787-9.
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Sept. 26, 2017, © Leeham Co.: Boeing declared the Very Large Aircraft sector dead in its most recent Current Market Outlook, removing the category entirely when the 2017 CMO was revealed at the Paris Air Show.
But the Large Wide Body (LWB) category appears to be on life support.
The LWB is 350-seats and above. This includes the Boeing 777-300ER, which is already on its way out, the 777-8, the 777-9 and the Airbus A350-1000.
The Medium Wide Body (MWB) category centers around 300 seats. This includes the A330-900, A350-900, 777-200LR and 787-10.
The Small Wide Body (SWB) includes the 787-8, 787-9, A330-200 and A330-800 in the 220-275 seat sector, twin-aisle aircraft. This does not include the 220-240 seat high density Airbus A321neo and Boeing 737-10 single-aisle aircraft.
Boeing’s CMO defines the twin-aisle markets differently: Small wide-body: <300 seats, Large wide-body: >300 seats.
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Sept. 25, 2017, © Leeham Co.: The ambitious plan of Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg to grow after-market services from today’s $14bn in revenues to $50bn in 5-10
years was announced nearly a year ago—Nov. 21.
Boeing Global Services, or BGS, combines separate operations in Boeing Commercial Airplanes and Boeing Defense, Space and Security (BCA and BDS respectively).
The growth depends on a combination of improving its current operations, growing organically and through mergers and acquisitions.
Wall Street aerospace analysts generally regard the timeline as ambitious.
In an interview with LNC, the CEO of BGS, Stan Deal, agreed.
Summary
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Sept. 21, 2017 © Leeham Co.: Airbus and Boeing look ahead to 2021 and the next several years when wide-body aircraft begin turning 25 years old to spur orders for this sector.
Boeing specifically points to this period as one reason for the announcement last week that it will boost production of the 787 to 14/mo beginning in 2019.
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Sept. 18, 2017, © Leeham Co.: Boeing last week announced it will take the production rate of the 787 from 12/mo to 14/mo in 2019.
The decision to do so was couched in a strong backlog and strong forthcoming demand by CEO Dennis Muilenburg at a Morgan Stanley conference.
But analysts think the move is more about boosting free cash flow and hitting margins than it is about demand.
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Sept. 11, 2017, © Leeham Co.: The deal last week between United Airlines and Airbus was a winner for the carrier and a mixed win for the OEM.
Boeing was also a mixed winner.
By Bjorn Fehrm
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September 07, 2016, ©. Leeham Co: Yesterday we described International Airlines Group’s (IAG) Vueling and LEVEL LCCs. Now we look at their cost and compare these to the direct competition; Ryanair, easyJet, Norwegian and Eurowings.
For Vueling and its competition, we have cost data from 2016 and 1H2017. For LEVEL, it’s too early. It started operations in June 2017. Here we compare the seat-mile costs of the chosen Airbus A330-200 to Norwegian Air Shuttle’s (Norwegian) Boeing 787-8.