We want engine choice, say airlines at IATA

Willie Walsh, CEO of British Airways, says sole-sourcing the engine on the 747-8 cost Boeing an order. BA bought the Airbus A380 instead. Photo source: SI.WSJ.net via Google images.

June 9, 2015, c. Leeham Co. Airlines want engine choices, not sole-source on airplanes, airlines said at the International Air Transport Assn. (IATA) Annual General Meeting in Miami Beach (FL).

Sole-sourcing cost Boeing a major order for the slow-selling 747-8, said Willie Walsh, CEO of British Airways. Relations at the time between British and GE Aviation, the sole engine provider on the 747-8, were so poor BA decided instead to order the Airbus A380, where a choice between the Engine Alliance GP7200 and the Rolls-Royce Trent 900 was possible GE is a JV partner in Engine Alliance with Pratt & Whitney. BA bought Rolls.

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Emirates A350/787 bake-off remains wide open

Tim Clark, president of Emirates Airline. Photo: Skift.com via Google images.

June 9, 2015, c. Leeham Co. Competition between Airbus and Boeing remains wide open between the A350-900 and the 787-10, says the president of Emirates Airline despite an Internet report that the carrier has tilted toward Boeing.

“No, I don’t know where that’s coming from,” Clark today told Leeham News and Comment on the sidelines of the International Air Transport Assn. Annual General Meeting in Miami Beach. “If anything, the 10 is not coming up with the thrust requirements that we need. We’re working with Boeing on that, whereas the A350-900 has got bags of thrust.

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A350 replacing A340-300 / 777-200ER, still on with lower fuel prices?

By Bjorn Fehrm

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Introduction

June 7, 2015, c. Leeham Co. We have just rounded off a series of articles around how A350 is to fly, its systems approach and lastly the conversion of Finnair’s A340/A330 pilots to A350. Finnair will replace the airlines A340-300 with the A350-900.

A question that comes up is how much more efficient is the A350 that is delivered to these airlines, and does the investment still make sense with today’s lower fuel prices? To get an answer we took the two customers that will get their A350 within the next months, Vietnam Airlines and Finnair, and we compared A350-900 to the aircraft that it will replace in their fleets, Boeing 777-200ER for Vietnam Air and Airbus A340-300 for Finnair.

We used our proprietary model to fly these aircraft over some typical routes for the airline’s, for Vietnam Airlines Saigon-London and for Finnair Helsinki-Shanghai.

Summary:

  • The present aircraft are over 20% less efficient than A350 on these routes.
  • For the A340 it is the engines which are the culprit, for the 777-200ER the wing.
  • With a realistic fuel price for the planning period the differences in efficiency are large enough to motivate the switch.

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Pontifications: re-engining airliners and the A380

Hamilton (5)

By Scott Hamilton

June 1, 2015, c. Leeham Co. The Paris Air Show begins in two weeks. One thing that won’t happen is the launch of the Airbus A380neo.

We still think it will happen, though at a later date.

Re-engining the A380 is highly controversial. The A380 is the plane critics love to hate. You can argue whether it should have been built in the first place. You can argue whether it was 10 years too soon. You can argue whether Airbus misjudged the size of the market. You can even argue its passenger appeal. I haven’t flown on the A380 yet, so I can’t speak from personal experience on the latter. I’ve previously discussed the other points.

You can argue whether the airplane should be re-engined. Leeham News concluded in January 2014 Airbus really had no choice but to re-engine the A380 if it wants to continue offering the model. If done inexpensively (a relative term, to be sure), it makes sense given the arrival around 2020 of the Boeing 777-9. It’s when design creep happens that trouble arises. Just ask Boeing on the 747-8.

Emirates Airlines says it will buy up to 200 A380neos if Airbus proceeds. Qatar Airways expresses interest. Lufthansa Airlines said a neo is needed to keep the A380 viable in the future, though it hasn’t taken the next step of saying it will buy more.

Re-engining is hardly new. Let’s take a look. Read more

Paris Air Show: Qatar and others

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Introduction

June 1, 2015, c. Leeham Co. It could be called the Qatar Airways Air Show.

Qatar Airways plans to have five airliners on display at the Paris Air Show in two weeks: the Airbus A319, A320, A350, A380 and the Boeing 787. The carrier hasn’t announced whether it will provide an aerial display as it has at previous air shows, but Qatar may well have more airliners there than Airbus or Boeing.

As for manufacturers other than Airbus and Boeing, we don’t expect anything of consequence from these.

Summary

  • Irkut, COMAC, Mitsubishi, Sukoi and ATR are other major aircraft producers that will be at the Paris Air Show.
  • Engine makers CFM International, GE Aviation, Rolls-Royce, Pratt & Whitney and Engine Alliance will also be there.
  • An update on Airbus expectations.

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Bjorn’s Corner: Airbus Innovation days, activities and program updates.

By Bjorn Fehrm

By Bjorn Fehrm

Introduction

28 May 2015, C. Leeham Co: I am in Toulouse today attending Airbus Innovation days for Leeham News. It has been a good day’s briefings and I have presented what was perhaps the biggest change since we last met Airbus in the article “Airbus A350-1000 getting real”.

Apart from this program, there were more standard updates on Airbus other activities and programs. Here follows a rundown on these updates in a more paraphrased form.

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Airbus Innovation days: A350-1000 getting real

By Bjorn Fehrm

Introduction

May 28, 2015, c. Leeham Co. We are visiting the Airbus Innovation days where we have been given an update all Airbus civil aircraft programs. The perhaps most interesting update is the progress of the A350-1000 as its forerunner, A350-900, is ramping its production to 15 aircraft during 2015.

The A350-1000 is next in turn; it will be flying next summer and will enter service with first customer Qatar Airways summer of 2017. The A350-1000 is getting more real and Airbus gave a good insight to the aircraft’s readiness for prime time during the sessions of today.

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ISTAT Asia day two: home for the elderly

Introduction

May 12, 2015, c. Leeham Co: As you would have guessed we are talking Asian civil airliners, where planning in the region for the fast growing older generations is inadequate. This was the subject of several sessions during day two of the ISTAT Asia (International Society of Transport Aircraft Trading) conference in Singapore.

The problem is new, as up to now a newly established airline fleet in Asia has not had any numbers of older aircraft. But the expansion over the last 20 years is now producing the first transition waves of aircraft and the planning around the problems this generates is inadequate.

The result will be surprising write-downs of airline assets as aircraft being replaced cannot be transitioned out at booked residual values. The scale of the problem was highlighted by a survey of the 500 gathered ISTAT industry experts. The question posed to them was “There are 4700 aircraft coming up for replacement until 2033, has Asian airlines planned adequately for this?”:

  • 49% of the delegates responded a few airlines have.
  • 45% answered there are only some that do it.
  • 5% of the delegates answered most airlines does it.
  • 2% thought all Asian airlines have done it.

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Paris Air Show Preview: Airbus

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Introduction

May 3, 2015, c. Leeham Co. The Paris Air Show is June 15-19 for the trade/industrial portion. Beginning this week, Leeham News and Comment will provide our Airbus_logo_3D_BlueMarket Assessment and insight about what to expect. We begin this weekly exercise by looking at Airbus. Future posts will look at Boeing, Bombardier, Embraer and other major players at the PAS.

Summary

  • First, an overarching look at what to expect;
  • What to expect for Airbus at the show;
  • The future of the A380neo;
  • Outlook for the A330ceo/neo; and
  • Outlook for the A321LR.

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A380, 10 years later

April 28, 2015: Airbus is celebrating 10 years of its A380 super jumbo.

Just about everybody else is taking pot shots at it.

There’s little doubt the airplane is a masterful achievement. But production miscues delayed the airplane by two years, the market moved on it and when it was envisioned in the late 1990s, the Boeing 777-9 wasn’t.

So 10 years after entry-into-service, and a mere 15 after the program was launched, Airbus faces a crossroads: does it re-engine the airplane on an iffy business case or can it come up with enough Performance Improvement Packages for the airframe and with the engine makers chipping in to give it new life until the market grows into the airplane–if it ever does, say detractors.

Some at Boeing we talked with are rooting for Airbus to take the neo plunge. Read more