Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
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
Bjorn’s Corner: New engine development. Part 21. The High Turbine.
August 23, 2024, ©. Leeham News: We do an article series about engine development and why it has longer timelines than airframe development. It also carries larger risks of product maturity problems when it enters service than the airframe. We discuss why.
In our journey through an engine, we have reached the turbine part, where we will dig deeper into the high-pressure turbine. This is the most stressed part of the engine and has a major influence on engine performance and durability.
Figure 1. Our example engine, the LEAP-1A cross-section with the high-pressure turbine marked. Source: CFM.
The Military Gravy Train. Not for everyone.
Subscription Required
By the Leeham News Team
Aug. 22, 2024, © Leeham News: Lockheed Martin (LM). RTX. Northrop Grumman (NG), General Dynamics (GD). BAE Systems (BAE). These are the world’s largest defense contractors, by revenue.
| 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | |||||
| Sales | Earnings | Sales | Earnings | Sales | Earnings | ||
| Lockheed Martin | $67,571 | 6,920 | 65,984 | 5,732 | 67,044 | 6,315 | |
| RTX | $68,920 | 3,195 | 67,074 | 5,5216 | 64,388 | 3,897 | |
| Northrop Grumman | $39,290 | 2,056 | 36,602 | 4,896 | 35,667 | 7,005 | |
| General Dynamics | $42,272 | 3,315 | 39,407 | 3,390 | 38,469 | 3,257 | |
| BAE Systems (in £) | £25,284 | 2,682 | 23,256 | 2,479 | 21,310 | 2,205 | |
| (in millions) |
Source: 2023 Financial reports. BAE reporting in EBIT.
Five corporations. Three years. Fifteen sets of data points. Not a drop of red ink to be seen. Airbus and Boeing can’t say the same thing.
Aviation’s recruiting problem shifting from pilots to technicians, cabin crew
Subscription Required
By Judson Rollins
Introduction
August 19, 2024, © Leeham News: Boeing issued the latest edition of its annual Pilot and Technician Outlook (PTO) last month, forecasting demand for 2.3 million new aviation personnel by 2043.
Of these, 649,000 are new pilots, 690,000 are new technicians, and 938,000 are new cabin crew.
“Driven by aviation traffic trending above pre-pandemic levels, personnel attrition, and commercial fleet growth, the demand for aviation personnel continues to rise,” said Chris Broom, vice president of Commercial Training Solutions at Boeing Global Services.
Source: United Airlines.
The Seattle-based OEM says demand for new personnel will be driven primarily by single-aisle airplanes, except in Africa and the Middle East, where widebody airplane demand will be the key factor.
According to the forecast, greater Europe — what Boeing now calls “Eurasia” — China and North America will account for more than half of new industry personnel.
The company believes South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Africa will be the fastest-growing regions for personnel, with demand expected to more than triple within 20 years.
Two-thirds of new personnel will address replacement due to retiring staff and other attrition, while one-third will support growth in the commercial fleet.
Summary
- The global pilot shortage may peak sooner than expected.
- Technician recruiting is increasingly hampered by competition from other industries and obsolete educational programs.
- Increasing cabin crew attrition could drive higher costs for airlines.
Bjorn’s Corner: New engine development. Part 20. Temperatures.
By Bjorn Fehrm
August 16, 2024, ©. Leeham News: We do an article series about engine development. The aim is to understand why engine development now has longer timelines than airframe development and carries larger risks of product maturity problems.
To understand why engine development has become a challenging task, we need to understand engine fundamentals and the technologies used for these fundamentals.
We have covered the different areas of a gas turbine except the exhaust (Figure 1). Before we go to the exhaust and the different outputs from a gas turbine Core, we look at the temperatures and how to cope with them in the different sections of a gas turbine.
Figure 1. The gas turbine cycle and its parts. Source: Rolls-Royce: The Jet Engine.
The all-important Unit Cost
- Part II of the Boeing Liabilities Problem
Subscription Required
By the Leeham News Team
Aug. 15, 2024, © Leeham News: Chief Financial Officer Brian West recently cautioned Boeing (BA) analysts and investors about the cash burn on the Q2/2024 earnings call;
“I’m just not smart enough right at this moment to say whether it’s $5bn or $10bn,”
BA used $4.3bn in the second quarter, which followed a burn-off of $3.9bn in the first quarter. The company shored up its cash position by borrowing $10bn during Q2/2024, injecting much-needed funds to cover losses. Eventually, all that money must be repaid.
LNA continues to analyze just how short Boeing is from that point and where it needs to be to make that happen.
Supply chain may be stabilising — but risks remain, says Accenture’s aerospace lead
Subscription Required
By the Leeham News Team
August 12, 2024, © Leeham News at Farnborough: After a period of intense disruption, the aerospace supply chain is showing signs of stabilisation, partly due to Boeing’s recent production slowdown, according to Accenture’s global aerospace and defense lead, John Schmidt.
Titanium is now a scarce material given the sanctions against Russia. All Airbus and Boeing airplanes use the material. Photo Credit: Leeham News.
The reduction in output has eased some pressure on suppliers, allowing them to catch up on backlogs and recalibrate operations. However, Schmidt warned this respite may be short-lived as new challenges loom on the horizon.
Geopolitical tension involving Western nations and Russia, and the Asia-Pacific region, risks raw material shortages that may disrupt the delicate balance once more.
“The supply chain has evolved and changed in terms of where the focus is since COVID,” noted Schmidt in a sit-down interview with LNA at the Farnborough Airshow in July. “It wasn’t too long ago that we couldn’t get chips – chips were holding things back. It seems like we’ve gotten ahead of that, and now we’re dealing with trying to find other sources of supply, and sometimes it’s an issue with quality coming in.”
“What’s next is going to be sources of supply for things like titanium? There is enough in the supply chain already that has insulated the impact, but we’re starting to see early indications that [titanium] might be the next thing that comes up.” Read more
Airbus a sideshow in Boeing-Spirit deal, but intertwined
Subscription Required
By the Leeham News Team
Aug. 9, 2024, © Leeham News: The financial results for the first half of 2024 are in for the corporations of the aviation industry and it has been a mixed bag for many. Notably, Tier 1 supplier Spirit Aerosystems (SA) faces increasing cash flow pressure, despite reporting a 9% increase in revenues.
President and Chief Executive Officer Pat Shanahan was supportive of employees. “This has been a dynamic and eventful period for the company, and I want to extend my gratitude to each employee for their dedication and hard work.”
Profitability, Free Cash Flow (FCF) and Cash on hand were driven down by a joint product verification process on the 737 MAX shipsets, to ensure conformity of fuselages prior to transportation to Boeing’s (BA) final assembly site in Renton (WA). During the second quarter, a paltry 27 units were shipped to BA, averaging nine a month. Quarterly and half year deliveries were either relatively flat or down, over 2023.
Source: Spirit Aerosystems 1H2024 Results
Meanwhile, deliveries to Airbus (AB) were up across the board, with the exception of the A330 program, which dipped slightly for the first half. Year-over-year, SA shipped 37 more shipsets during the second quarter and 52 more over the half-year to Airbus.
While Boeing has faced increased scrutiny from regulators, which has trickled down to SA, why does Spirit seem able to produce components for Airbus that pass inspection and enter into the AB supply chain, in increasing numbers?
Bjorn’s Corner: New engine development. Part 19. Turbines.
By Bjorn Fehrm
August 9, 2024, ©. Leeham News: We do an article series about engine development. The aim is to understand why engine development now has longer timelines than airframe development and carries larger risks of product maturity problems.
To understand why engine development has become a challenging task, we need to understand engine fundamentals and the technologies used for these fundamentals.
We have covered the problem areas of (Figure 1) compression in the compressor and combustion. Now, we look at the power-generating section, the turbines.
Figure 1. The gas turbine cycle and its parts. Source: Rolls-Royce: The Jet Engine.
Bullish Embraer sees backlog reach 7-year high in 2Q24 results
By Leeham News Team
Aug 8, 2024, © Leeham News: Embraer presented a strong set of results for 2Q2024 on Thursday, with a jump in aircraft deliveries pushing the Brazilian planemaker’s order backlog to a seven-year high.
Revenues totaled $1.494 billion in the period — an increase of 67% compared to the previous quarter, with the commercial aviation division achieving revenue growth of 176% over the prior three months.
Embraer delivered 47 jets in 2Q24, including 27 executive jets (20 light and seven medium), 19 commercial jets and one of its multi-mission C-390 Millennium transport aircraft. Collectively, that amounted to an increase of 88% versus the 25 aircraft delivered in the first quarter.
For the commercial division, aircraft deliveries were up 12% year-on-year, although defence deliveries were flat and business jets were down 10%. Read more
Calhoun’s biggest failure at Boeing: fixing safety
By Scott Hamilton
Commentary
David Calhoun
Aug. 8, 2024, © Leeham News: Kelly Ortberg becomes president and chief executive officer of The Boeing Co. today. He replaces David 
Calhoun, who was named to the position in January 2020. Calhoun replaced Dennis Muilenburg, with a charge to save Boeing from the first 737 MAX crisis and extended grounding; and fix, among other things, the safety culture failures that led to the 21-month grounding of Boeing’s cash cow.
Ortberg has a long list of things to fix, including but not limited to:
- The union contract with the IAM 751, in negotiations now; the contract expires in September
- Fixing Boeing’s safety culture
- Quality control at all the BCA and BDS factories
- Stemming losses at BDS
- Getting BCA production back up to normal rates (50+ for the 737, 10-12 for the 787)
- Getting the MAX 7, MAX 10, and 777X certified
- Regaining the confidence of the FAA, EASA, and other regulators; getting authority to oversee its operations and ticket airplanes back from the FAA
- Repairing the balance sheet
- Integrating Spirit AeroSystems into Boeing
- Returning BCA to profitability
- Launching a new airplane to replace the 737
- Regaining global market share closer to parity with Airbus
- Repair relations with the supply chain
- Negotiate a new contract with the engineers union, SPEEA, in 2026
- Repair relations with the airlines and lessors
- Repair relations with the IAM 751 and SPEEA unions
Ortberg’s long list of things to do reflects a failure of leadership by Calhoun.