RR vs Air France: We’ve written about this before–Air France wants to maintain the Rolls-Royce Trent XWB engines on the Airbus A350s it wants to buy, but RR wants to maintain the engines. The dispute has been holding up confirming the order for a year. The Wall Street Journal has this update.
Kingfisher Airlines: The carrier continues its long spiral down. Lessors want airplanes back. The government is holding onto the airplanes in lieu of the airlines’ airport payments which are in default. ATR long ago canceled the orders it had with Kingfisher. Airbus is the other big loser.
Phuket: Emirates Airlines adds Phuket, Thailand, to its route network. We’ve always loved this name. But we’ve always wondered: is it pronounced with a soft U or a hard U? Fokker is a close runner-up.
Update, 1:30 PM PDT: One of the first images from Mars, courtesy of Mr. Sulu (George Takei on Facebook):
737 MAX: Boeing Frontiers Magazine has a long article with lots of pictures describing the designing process of the Advanced Technology Winglets.
RR-PW on big engines: Aviation Week has this article speculating on the prospect of Rolls-Royce and Pratt & Whitney teaming to offer an engine for the Boeing 777X.
CFM says the use of advanced materials will reduce fuel consumption in the LEAP-1A (Airbus) engine by 1.5%, which happens to be the amount John Leahy of Airbus said that PW’s GTF has an advantage over LEAP.
ANA 787s: Market Watch quotes an ANA official saying the Boeing 787-8 is saving 21% in fuel over eh previous airplanes. The article didn’t ID the previous planes, but they were the Boeing 767-300ER. Note, too, that the initial 787-8s are heavy and with Rolls-Royce engines that don’t initially meet specs.
Airbus to benefit from Boeing: The latter is closing its Wichita operations. The former will likely hire some of Boeing’s soon-to-be-out-of-work engineers. Here’s the article. Note that former Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, who is now governor, was present garbed in Airbus colors. This is the same Brownback who couldn’t diss Airbus enough during the EADS-Boeing tanker competition. Now Airbus seems to be Brownback’s best friend.
China-EU showdown over ETS: China continues to refuse to comply with the European Union’s demand that carbon emissions information be provided. China, which already refused to firm up orders for 45 Airbus A330s, threatened to impound European airplanes if the EU retaliates against China’s refusal to comply.
Air Lease Corp to order MAX: Steve Udvar-Hazy, CEO of the lessor, plans to order the 737 MAX within the next few weeks. Boeing wants to firm up orders from ALC, CIT Aerospace, ILFC, GECAS and Aviation Capital Group by or at the Farnborough Air Show.
787 Ramp-Up: UBS Securities issued a research note Monday in which it reports that the 787 rate ramp-up to 10 per month–a goal Boeing’s to be by the end of 2013–has slipped to the first quarter of 2014.
ISTAT: We’re at the annual ISTAT AGM in Phoenix and we’ll be reporting throughout the event odds and ends (adding to this post initially, separate posts later on). So come back often.
From ISTAT:
From Twitter, via Phil LeBeau of CNBC: @Boeing says it has NOT changed its goal of building 10 Dreamliners per month by end of 2013.
Back to ISTAT:
Side trip to Ex-Im:
Take a read of this column on the Ex-Im Bank financing controversy.
Back to ISTAT:
Boeing….
Airworthiness Directives: The New York Times has a good piece about ADs that should put many general assignment reporters to shame. The rhubarb over the ADs applied to the Airbus A380 spurred Nicola Clark’s reporting. This is a must-read not only for the general public to actually understand what’s going on in the world of aviation, it’s a must-read for the hysterical headline-writers who seem more interested in page hits than in facts.
787 Surge Line starts in June: Boeing’s 787 Surge Line begins operation in June. This is the line in Everett that is being created as risk mitigation for the new line in Charleston as the workforce there comes up on the learning curve. The two lines are intended to have a capacity of three per month, while Line 1 in Everett has a capacity of seven per month.
The Surge Line is supposed to terminate in May 2014, according to internal Boeing documents obtained by the IAM 751 in the now-defunct NLRB case. But we hope, and believe, the Surge Line could become a long-term line as Boeing considers ways to go beyond the 10/mo production rate goal by the end of 2013. We believe Boeing has to significantly go beyond this rate to catch up from delays that are hitting four years for some customers, as well as to open up slots for demand.
Rolls-Royce and the Trent XWB: Flight Global has a long article about RR’s engine development for the Airbus A350.
Dark Clouds over Asia: Aspire Aviation has a long piece about Asian airlines that are struggling. Asia has been a bright spot for Boeing and Airbus orders. Perhaps the bubble is about to burst.
Boeing 757 Crash: In 1996 a Birgenair Boeing 757 crashed into the sea, following discrepancies with the pitot tubes speed indications. This story revisits the circumstances.
Boeing WTO appeal: The appeal of the WTO panel findings that Boeing received illegal subsidies is due Wednesday. The EU filed a technical appeal to start the clock while the US Trade Representative filed a substantive appeal. Both sides will claim victory, in yet another round of what we consider to be a meaningless load of [stuff]. Our disdain for the WTO is well known to readers of this column.
Rolls-Royce: Flight Global has an interesting piece on Rolls-Royce’s product strategy.
90-Seat Turbo-Props: Flight Global also has an article on the engine development for the prospective 90-seat turbo-props.
COMAC C919: China’s aerospace authority, CAAC, has taken a hands-off approach to the design of the COMAC C919–a development that isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement of the project.
Southwest Airlines: A blog item from Terry Maxon of the Dallas Morning News lists Southwest operations at hub cities–and what’s interesting is that Chicago Midway Airport is one of WN”s least efficient city from an asset utilization standpoint. Look at the number of gates-to-flights in the charts.
Here are some additional thoughts about the Rolls-Royce/Pratt & Whitney deal announced yesterday.
PW is a real winner in this set of transactions.