Leeham News and Analysis
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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
A380neo decision likely this year, triggering the next widebody engine project
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By Bjorn Fehrm
Introduction
Jan. 12, 2015: One of the subjects which is sure to come up on Airbus annual press conference on Tuesday the 13th in Toulouse will be when and how Airbus will re-engine the A380.
Airbus Commercial CEO Fabrice Bregier vowed during the Airbus Group Global Investors Day last month that an A380neo is coming.
There is much speculation around this subject as the business case of re-engineering an aircraft that is selling at such low numbers is difficult to get to close. The business case is difficult to make work for Airbus 
(such a project will cost in the order of $2 billion) but it will be equally hard for the engine manufacturers to offer engines that have enough efficiency gain to make the overall project feasible from an efficiency improvement perspective.
Summary
- A380 Classic equals Boeing 777-300ER seat fuel costs.
- Boeing 777-9 beats A380 on CASM, an A380neo regains the advantage.
- Engine makers face hard choices to retain dominance or to broaden market penetration.
Aging Boeing 757 engines skew operating expenses
Jan. 8, 2015: Engines on the aging fleet of Boeing 757s are a key reason operating costs of this rather unique airplane are between 20% and 30% more than a Boeing 737-9 or an Airbus A321neo.
“The thing to worry about most for the 757 engines is the cost to overhaul,” says an industry official who trades in 757s. “The cost of producing life limited parts is crippling the marketplace.”
Total costs and the direct operating costs are being directly affect by the engine costs, the person says, who doesn’t want to be identified because of the sensitivity of the topic.
Looking ahead in 2015 in commercial aviation
Here’s a visualization of events to look for in commercial aviation in 2015.
Click to enlarge for crisp view.
Boeing 777-300ER and its replacements; A350-1000 and 777-9X.
By Bjorn Fehrm
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Introduction
Dec. 21, 2014: Last week we did a deep analysis of A380 and its competition. It has been windy weeks for the aircraft since the Airbus Global Investor Forum and it was time to bring some needed facts on the table. These facts showed there is a clear difference between the hype being perpetuated in the media and the reality. As we cleared the situation around the A380, we also touched on the large twins that could fulfill at least parts of its missions.
There has been a lot of discussion around these aircraft as well as they form the battle of titans one level down from A380, the large, long-haul market today dominated by Boeing’s 777-300ER (the A380 does not have a real competitor–the 748i is clearly smaller, in fact so much smaller that it will be engulfed by the 777-9X).
Summary
- The 777-300ER had an exclusive run in its size until launch of the A350-1000;
- The A350-1000 doesn’t enter service until 2017;
- 777-9 EIS set for 2020, with hopes to advance by six months;
- We undertake a full economic analysis which gives good cues as to the future dominance of Boeing or Airbus in this highest margin segment of the market.
A380, a deep analysis of its competitiveness
By Bjorn Fehrm
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Introduction
Dec. 18, 2014: In our Monday article we go behind the scenes of the doubts that were spread over the A380 by Airbus last week. To complete the picture we now update our competitive analysis that we did in February this year. We then compared the A380 to Boeing’s 747-8i, the 777-300ER and the forthcoming 777-9X. We also included Airbus closest aircraft, the A350-1000.
A lot has happened since then. Airbus has done a lot of work on the passenger area of the A380 to offer increased passenger densities and the pictures of the emerging Boeing 777-9X and Airbus A350-1000 is now clearer.
Sales efforts of the A380 has also progressed, with meager results despite adding a leasing proposition what should make the hurdles of operating a small sub-fleet of A380s lower. To understand why, we interviewed Mark Lapidus, the CEO of Amedeo, the leasing company which specializes in financing and leasing of A380s. We wanted specifically to talk to Lapidus about the reactions of the airlines to the A380 and what problems he saw in selling an aircraft of this type.
In preparing the article we also gathered additional info from Airbus and Boeing, from the former around their work on the cabin configurations and densities, from the latter the maintenance costs for the up and coming 777-9X.
Summary
- In our February article we established that an A380 is roughly equal on fuel per passenger transported to the benchmark in the present non-VLA long haul market, the Boeing 777-300ER. We also found that this is highly dependent on how many passengers one assumes for both aircraft in the comparison.
- We could also see that come 2020, when the replacement of the 777-300ER would be available, the 777-9X, A380 would trail with up to 20% in fuel efficiency, once again dependent on how many seats were used in the comparison.
- At the time we only looked at a fuel consumption comparison; we did not include crew cost, maintenance costs, landing and en route fees to generate Cash Operating Costs (COC) or capital costs to come to Direct Operating Cost (DOC). In today’s updated analysis we add these costs items.
- Finally we have talked with Amedeos CEO Mark Lapidus, asking about his discussions with the Airline CEOs and their teams, to understand what the reactions are from the airlines and why has he not placed any A380 with customers yet.
As we did this deeper study, a more nuanced and different picture emerged from the one seen in February. The results busts a number of deeply engraved myths, one being that four engines are more expensive to fly and maintain than two.
Lufthansa to use A340s in “lower cost” operation; our analysis against the 787
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By Scott Hamilton and Bjorn Fehrm
Introduction
Low cost long haul service is gaining traction, but previous efforts proved difficult to be successful.
Dating all the way back to Laker Airways’ Skytrain and the original PeoplExpress across the Atlantic, airlines found it challenging to make money.
More recently, AirAsiaX retracted some of its long-haul service, withdrawing Airbus A340-300 aircraft when they proved too costly. The airline recast its model around Airbus A330-300s as an interim measure, unable to fly the same distances as the longer-legged A340. AirAsiaX ordered the Airbus A350-900 and now is a launch customer for the A330-900neo.
Cebu Pacific of the Philippines is flying LCC A330-300 service to the Middle East. Norwegian Air Shuttle famously built its entire LCC long haul model around the Boeing 787, initiating service with the 787-8 and planning to move to the 787-9.
Canada’s WestJet is leasing in four used Boeing 767-300ERs to offer LCC service,
Legacy carrier Lufthansa Airlines plans to use fully depreciated A340-300s to begin “lower cost” (as opposed to “low cost”) long haul service. LH says the fully depreciated A340s come within 1%-2% of the cost per available seat mile of the new, high capital-cost 787s.
Summary
- AirAsiaX’s A340 LCC long haul service proved unprofitable. Can Lufthansa’s similar service with fully depreciated A340s work?
- Our analysis shows that it can. It can even support the lease rates that would be charged for a 10 year old A340 if the fuel price remains at the present level.
- When doing the research for this article and going through the results of our proprietary model we started to ask ourselves, is the A340-300 the ugly duckling of the airline market?
Odds and Ends: 787 donation; Alenia sues Bombardier over CSeries; 2016 777 delivery slots opening up
787 donation: The Boeing Co. handed over 787 test airplane #3 (ZA003) to the Museum of Flight Saturday in an elaborate ceremony marking an unprecedented donation of a modern airliner to an aviation museum.
Boeing 787 ZA003, which went on a world sales tour, was donated to Seattle’s Museum of Flight Nov. 8, 2014. The logos of customers bracket the #2 door. Photo by Leeham News and Comment. click to enlage.
To be sure, the donation was made possible by the fact that ZA003 (and 002 and 001) can’t be sold due to the massive rework necessary, and these three airplanes have been written off for more than $2bn. But this doesn’t make the event any less significant.
Boeing 737 MAX 8 as a long and thin aircraft and how it fares in general versus Airbus A320neo.
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By Bjorn Fehrm
Introduction
Over the last weeks we have looked at Boeing’s 757 replacement possibilities on its long and thin network niche, including a ground breaking launch interview for the A321neoLR with Airbus Head of Strategy and
Marketing, Kiran Rao. In the series we have seen that the A321neo has the potential to replace the 757-200 on long and thin international routes. Boeing’s equivalent single aisle entry, 737 MAX 9, has problems to extend its range over 3,600nm. It is too limited in the weight increase necessary to cover the longer range.
Many have asked how the less- restricted Boeing 737 MAX 8 would fare, suitably equipped with the necessary extra tanks. This is the subject of this week’s sequel on the theme long and thin. At the same time we look at Airbus entry in this segment, the A320neo, to see how it stacks up to the 737 MAX 8, both in their normal 1,000 to 2,000nm operation and then also in a long and thin scenario.
Let’s first summarize what we found so far in our four articles around the Boeing 757 and its alternatives:
Summary
Figure 1. Boeing 737 MAX 8 overlaid with Airbus A320neo. Source: Leeham Co.
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Posted on November 9, 2014 by Bjorn Fehrm
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