Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Leeham News and Analysis
- China bans Boeing, US parts imports in tariff war April 15, 2025
- Boeing welcomes COMAC competition as Asia-Pacific demand soars April 15, 2025
- How good is the C929? April 14, 2025
- Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 17. April 11, 2025
- Uncertainty plagues airline, aerospace, lessor industries over tariffs April 10, 2025
Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 10.
By Bjorn Fehrm
February 21, 2025, ©. Leeham News: We do a Corner series about the state of developments to replace or improve hydrocarbon propulsion concepts for Air Transport. We try to understand why the development has been slow.
Last week, we reviewed the present fallout of lower emission projects that have not reached their goals and where investors, therefore, have decided not to invest further.
There is a well-known project failing every month at the present pace. Some recent ones: Universal Hydrogen’s ATR conversions, Volocopter and Lilium’s bankruptcies, Airbus freezing the CityAirbus eVTOL (Figure 1) and pushing out the ZEROe hydrogen airliner, hibernation of the Alice battery aircraft, etc. There will probably be more in the coming months.
Airbus 2024 results: “A decent year in a challenging environment”.
By Bjorn Fehrm
February 20, 2025, © Leeham News in Toulouse: The headline uses the words of Airbus CEO Guillame Faury when he opened the presentation of Airbus 2024 results in Toulouse today. It was a session where Faury and the CFO Thomas Toepfer put in an effort to let all present international journalists and their online colleagues ask all questions and deliver honest answers.
On the business-as-usual side, the company delivered 766 aircraft, which was within the guidance, after a deep grab effort in 4Q, leading to low deliveries for 1Q2025. EBIT at €5.4bn and Free Cash Flow at €4.5bn were also within guidance.
In general, the Commercial airplane side was fighting specific supply problems during 2024, which might limit the ramp-up of A350s and A220s going forward, more of which below. Helicopters have now recovered from challenging times and delivered a solid result. Defense and Space are strong in Air Power (fighters, etc.), given the tense European situation, with Space going through restructuring, which might include mergers with other European space players.
The real news was the reasons for pausing the CityAirbus eVTOL program, according to Faury, “not only because batteries were not where they should have been but also due to the lack of a market for this type of transportation.” As the world’s largest supplier of helicopters, Airbus is a credible source for such a lack of market statement.
Faury also detailed what is happening on the Hydrogen side. Due to slower-than-expected progress in Green Hydrogen production build-up, deployment of preparatory Ground Support Equipment (GSE), and Transportation using hydrogen at the airports in their H2 partner network, Airbus has decided to push out the entry into service of a “commercially viable hydrogen aircraft” by five to ten years.
However, said Faury, it has made progress. “We have reached TRL 3 for the tecnobricks, which has enabled us to select the Fuel Cell path as the preferred way forward. This means these activities are continued at the present level or even intensified, but it also means other paths (read Hydrogen burn) are ramped down. Overall, it means a decrease in R&D spending for Hydrogen activities in the coming years.”
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Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 9.
By Bjorn Fehrm
February 14, 2025, ©. Leeham News: We do a Corner series about the state of developments to replace or improve hydrocarbon propulsion concepts for Air Transport. We try to understand why the development has been slow.
We have covered the progress of battery-based aircraft and hybrids. Last Corner started looking at hydrogen-fueled alternatives. A day after the Corner, the Airbus workers union Force Ovrier published information from an Airbus internal meeting, in which the airframer delayed the introduction of a hydrogen aircraft by 2035 to about 10 years later. As a consequence, it reduces the R&D spending on the development of hydrogen propulsion technologies.
Figure 1. The Airbus ZEROe concepts. Source: Airbus.
What’s the Green aviation news at Paris 2023?
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By Bjorn Fehrm
June 22, 2023, © Leeham News: Every announcement from aircraft deals, OEM updates, or supply chain news now has the words Sustainable/Sustainability injected in every second sentence. It doesn’t matter what the subject is; if it’s about a gas-guzzling way of transporting people at supersonic or even hypersonic speeds or at the other end in an eVTOL which is only as fast as your car on a US highway.
What is the real news about making our air transport system less polluting behind this misuse of the buzzwords? You have to search behind the headlines and the announcements that you know will not turn the dial. Let’s tour the Paris Air Show 2023 and look at the real developments in Sustainability.
Figure 1. First flight of Universal Hydrogen’s DH8-300 with a hydrogen propulsion system on the starboard side. Source: Universal Hydrogen.
Summary:
- The waves of Green propulsion solutions with inflated claims have calmed down.
- It’s replaced with operationally usable solutions that deliver tangible emission gains.
Bjorn’s Corner: Sustainable Air Transport. Part 58. Summary Part 2.
By Bjorn Fehrm
February 17, 2023, ©. Leeham News: Last week, we summarized that SAF is the short-term solution for GreenHouse Gas (GHG) reduction for Air Transport, and hydrogen is the longer-term solution for up to medium-haul flights.
What about battery and hybrid aircraft? It’s the go-to solution for ground transport (except for long-haul trucks, which are going hydrogen, Figure 1)?
Figure 1. Mercedes hydrogen truck from the world’s largest truck maker. Source: Daimler trucks.
Bjorn’s Corner: Sustainable Air Transport. Part 52. What can be done before 2050?
By Bjorn Fehrm
January 6, 2023, ©. Leeham News: Since we started this series about our Air Transports and their pollution, we have covered different schemes of reduction such as improved Air Traffic Control (ATC), change to electric aircraft (battery/hybrids) or hydrogen as fuel, and lastly, eVTOLs.
Of these changes, only ATC can have a short-term effect, but it’s a slow mover for organizational reasons.
Changes to how our aircraft are propelled are, unfortunately, longer-term improvements, as we see in an example below.
But we need fast change. We’ve had the craziest of summer and now winter in Europe, where I live, and it’s not a one-time variation. And this is not confined to Europe; the weather change is faster than we thought, and it’s worldwide.
So what can we do?
Figure 1. CO2 emissions by region. Source: Our World in Data.
Airbus Summit Showcases Sustainability Status
By Bjorn Fehrm
December 7, 2022, © Leeham News was at Airbus Summit: Airbus briefed media and influences on its Sustainability progress during briefings in Toulouse and Munich last week. Here is an update on where Airbus is with its programs.
The overall impression is of tangible progress on techno brick research and development and echo systems programs like SAF production and hydrogen supply and ground infrastructure.
At the summit, key customers like Airlines, technology partners, and leasing companies were part of the panels, giving the customer perspective and the view of the passengers.
Figure 1. The test setup of the Airbus fuel cell turboprop engine on its A380 test aircraft. Source: Airbus.
Airbus prepares contrail flight tests
July 21, 2022, © Leeham News at Farnborough Air Show: Airbus is converting two Arcus high-altitude gliders to check if the contrails produced by hydrogen combustion engines create an environmental problem.
The background is that experts can’t agree if the water vapor produced by hydrogen combustion (which merges hydrogen with oxygen to water) can cause global warming or not. The only way to resolve the dispute and gain fundamental knowledge is to fly and measure.
Figure 1. First flight with the Blue Condor program’s test aircraft. Source: Airbus.
Bjorn’s Corner: Sustainable Air Transport. Part 25. High Temperature Fuel Cell-based 70-seat airliner
By Bjorn Fehrm
June 24, 2022, ©. Leeham News: Last week, we discussed how a High Temperature Fuel Cell (HTFC) could improve the installation of a propulsion system in our 70-seat airliner. We now add this variant to the systems we examined for installation effects and efficiencies.
The deeper discussion is in the sister article, Part 25P. High Temperature Fuel Cell-based 70-seat airliner.
Figure 1. The ATR 72-600 70-seater turboprop. Source: ATR.
Bjorn’s Corner: Sustainable Air Transport. Part 25P. High Temperature Fuel Cell-based 70-seat airliner. The deeper discussion.
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June 24, 2022, ©. Leeham News: This is a complementary article to Part 25, High Temperature Fuel Cell-based 70-seat airliner. It adds the masses and efficiencies of a High Temperature Fuel Cell system to our 70-seat airliner fuel cell variants.