Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Bjorn’s Corner: Why e in ePlane shall stand for environment, Part 6. The CO2 problem.
January 24, 2020, ©. Leeham News: In the last Corners we tested some of the ideas why electric/hybrid propulsion would be more efficient and found the ideas could be easier and better implemented with existing technology, yet they are not. One wonders why. Perhaps the ideas are not that brilliant after all.
Before we look at alternative technologies that can help us lower air transports CO2 footprint we shall scope the problem and look at what part air transport plays. To what extent is air transport at the center of the problem?
Figure 1. The CO2 concentration in our atmosphere and what sectors contribute the CO2. Source: Wikipedia.
First flight of Boeing 777-9 today, weather-dependent
By Scott Hamilton
Jan. 24, 2020, © Leeham Co.: In a year filled with bad news, Boeing finally had something good to crow about.
The 777-9’s first flight is today.
It comes about a year late, due to design issues with the GE Aviation GE9X engine that powers the airplane.
And, as if this weren’t bad enough, when the engines were returned from GE, a hard landing damaged one of them.
Despite rainy and cloudy weather today at Paine Field in Everett (WA), where the 777 has been assembled since the program was launched in the early 1990s.
The 777-9 is scheduled to lift off at 10am PST, depending on the Seattle area’s lousy weather this week.
With Boeing’s 737 MAX delivered to storage instead of customers, unique cost and revenue insights can be gained.
By Bjorn Fehrm
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Introduction
January 23, 2020, © Leeham News: The last three-quarters of non-delivered Boeing 737 MAX production exposes the internals of an airliner OEM as seldom before.
The second, third and eventually fourth quarterly reports from Boeing can be compared to the same reports for the 2018 quarters. The differences in the numbers represent the production cost of the 737 MAX being booked as inventory instead of revenue. These values make for interesting reading as they give deeper insights into the production costs and net customer prices for the model.
Summary:
- When the MAX goes to storage it’s delivered to Boeing Commercial Airlane’s inventory.
- The net production cost appears in an increased inventory cost and the net customer price is missing in revenue.
- By careful comparison of the quarterly reports between 2019 and 2018, cost and revenue insights can be gained
Leasing industry sees a role in airline sustainability work
By Bjorn Fehrm
January 22, 2020, ©. Leeham News, Dublin: The yearly Air Finance Journal conference finished its second day with a Q&A with the top executives of the Leasing industry.
The Leasing companies buy 40% of all new airliners from the likes of Airbus and Boeing, to later rent them to the airlines on a monthly basis.
With 40% of all new aircraft delivered to these companies, their view on where we are in the cycle and what are the main challenges facing air transport is important.
The main topics during the three-day conference are the state of the airlines, the ease or difficulty to finance the purchase of $50bn of aircraft per year and the growing issue of air transport and the environment.
Analysts react negatively to Boeing slip of MAX recertification
Jan. 22, 2020, © Leeham News: Boeing’s announcement yesterday that it does not expect recertification of the 737 MAX until mid-year drew 
generally negative responses from Wall Street aerospace analysts.
More charges and costs to Boeing and the supply chain are expected beyond what was anticipated in next Wednesday’s 2019 earnings call.
Below are the initial reports from analysts in notes received by LNA. The bold face type is in the original.
Mitsubishi ends 2019 with ~500 commitments for SpaceJet
By Scott Hamilton
Jan. 22, 2020, © Leeham News: Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp. (MITAC) ended 2019 with 495 commitments for the M100 SpaceJets from multiple continents, LNA learned.
All but 100 from US regional carrier Mesa Airlines are unidentified.
Mesa announced a commitment for 50 firm orders and 50 options in September at the US Regional Airline Assn. annual meeting in Nashville.
MITAC wouldn’t comment, but LNA understands that commitments come from North America and Europe. It’s unclear if additional commitments are from Asia.
Japan’s ANA and Japan Air Lines are launch customers for the M90 SpaceJet, previously called the MRJ90. This model was rebranded in June at the Paris Air Show when the M100 SpaceJet program was launched.
Environment and aviation, a gap between aspirations and reality
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By Vincent Valery
Introduction
Jan. 20, 2020, © Leeham News: Talks about climate change and the need to reduce human-induced carbon emissions are nowadays a daily occurrence in Western media. After years of faster-than-trend growth in global passenger numbers, aviation-induced carbon emissions commensurably increased in spite of record deliveries in latest-generation, fuel-efficient planes.
As a result of this growth, airlines have been one of the main targets of environmental groups. The high growth culminated in the start of the flight-shame movement that originated in Sweden (flygskam). As outlined in a previous LNA article, there are discussions about introducing a jet fuel tax for all flights within the European Union.
Credit: Zunum Aero
Airbus is committed to the “decarbonization” of its next airplane design.
Boeing’s next move for a new airplane has been sidetracked by the 737 MAX crisis.
Embraer is devoting considerable effort to developing a “green” airplane.
Summary
- Airlines and politicians on the back foot;
- Variety of opinion among regions;
- And airlines make consensus-building hard;
- An obsession with one way to reduce emissions;
- Flybe’s bailout summarizes contradictions and challenges.
Pontifications: Another Calhoun challenge: fixing Boeing’s product strategy
Jan. 20, 2020, © Leeham News: David Calhoun has been CEO of The Boeing Co. for a week. A couple of new problems arose.
By Scott Hamilton
Late last week, the US Air Force weighed in that it’s unhappy, again, with Boeing over the KC-46A program. The Air Force was previously open about its dissatisfaction with Boeing’s performance. But top officials were quick to contact the new CEO with its unhappiness.
A new software problem was found on the 737 MAX which may add some time to the recertification timeline. The problem involves booting up two computers on start up and isn’t considered a big issue.
Last week, LNA posted a series of articles about Calhoun’s immediate challenges.
Last November, LNA posted a graphic that listed a host of problems that occurred under Denis Muilenburg’s watch. Calhoun must deal with these, too.
Today, we take a look at another challenge Calhoun must face: Boeing’s commercial airplane product strategy.
Bjorn’s Corner: Why e in ePlane shall stand for environment, Part 5. Distributed propulsion.
January 17, 2020, ©. Leeham News: We continue our series why e in ePlane shall stand for environment and not electric, where we now examine the gains with electric/hybrid distributed propulsion systems.
We started last week with the type of boundary layer ingesting aft fans shown in Figure 1. Now we continue with wing mounted distributed propulsors.
Figure 1. Boundary-Layer Ingestion aft fans, driven by electric motors. Source: JADC.
Air Canada inaugurates A220-300 service today
Jan. 16, 2020, © Leeham News: Air Canada inaugurates Airbus A220-300 service today, becoming the second North American carrier to operate the A220. Delta Air Lines was the first, with the A220-100 last year.
Air Canada A220-300. Photo by Scott Hamilton.
It is the first North American airline to operate the -300 model. The new service begins on the Montreal-Calgary route.
Airline and Airbus officials paid homage to Bombardier at a celebration yesterday in an Air Canada hanger down the block from Bombardier’s world headquarters on the edges of Montreal Dorval Airport.
Bombardier designed the aircraft, originally called C Series, in a bet-the-company challenge to Airbus and Boeing.