Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Leeham News and Analysis
- Pontifications: A Personal Note June 19, 2025
- Airbus books 148 firm orders as Boeing retracts from the Paris Air Show June 19, 2025
- AIN Media Group Agrees to Acquire Leeham News & Analysis June 17, 2025
- Five for Five: Air India crash points to systemic problems at Boeing that CEO Ortberg must fix June 15, 2025
- Airbus sees Boeing as medium-term competitor, with Comac next June 14, 2025
Farnborough: Boeing reconsiders metal fuselage for NMA as cost remains major challenge
July 16, 2018, © Leeham News: Farnborough: Boeing has returned to considering a metal fuselage for the New Midmarket Aircraft as an alternative to the ovoid-based composite design that has been the focus for the past two-three years, multiple sources tell LNC.
Boeing hasn’t been able to narrow the cost of the composite design to a point where selling the aircraft in the $70m-range is feasible, sources say.
Farnborough: E190-E2 “quietest single aisle airplane in production,” boasts CEO
July 15, 2018, © Leeham News, Farnborough: Embraer today revealed that the E190-E2 achieved better fuel burn than its target of 16%.
Flight tests showed fuel burn was 17.3% better than the E1, said Rodrigo de Souza, VP Marketing in a press briefing in advance of the official show opening tomorrow.
Wideroe Airlines, the launch operator of the E190-E2, now has three in service. De Souza said initial analysis of the operations show fuel burn is even better than the flight test results, but he declined to be specific until more operations are completed with more airplanes in a few months.
Embraer claims fuel burn is 10% better than the Airbus A220.
Wideroe’s small fleet has completed 800 flight hours at an average of seven hours a day. In eight out of 11 weeks, the fleet had 100% dispatch reliability, he said.
Pontifications: Final Farnborough forecast
Special Sunday edition of Pontifications.
By Scott Hamilton
July 15, 2018, © Leeham News: The Farnborough Air Show officially starts tomorrow, when airframers begin their public relations presentations and orders are announced.
As this is written on July 13, I’m doing a final update of what to expect from the show. It’s always risky making predictions. If they are overly optimistic or pessimistic, the predictor can look foolish.
But here goes.
LNC took its first forecast look June 25.
Bjorn’s Corner: Largest navigation change since radar, Part 5
By Bjorn Fehrm
July 13, 2018, ©. Leeham News: Last week we discussed ADS-B in capabilities and how the US second channel at 978MHz brings the bandwidth for many useful services.
Before we discuss what improvements in navigation ADS-B will bring long-term, let’s sidetrack to describe the present Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) and why it’s eventual replacement with ADS-B will improve air safety further.
Figure 1. A TCAS II display with warnings and advisories. Source: AeroSavvy.com
Airbus’ jetBlue A220 deal, first analysis
By Bjorn Fehrm
Subscription Required
Introduction
July 12, 2018, © Leeham News: The Airbus A220 won its first battle against Embraer’s E2 E-Jets, winning the order to replace 60 Embraer E190s at jetBlue. The airline held a telephone conference yesterday, presenting its choice of the A220 and explaining why it chose the A220.
JetBlue said in the call it was a close race. We analyze how close.
Summary:
- JetBlue showed the advantages the A220-300 would have against the incumbent E190. The expected improvement in costs of 25%-30% were identified.
- The airline wouldn’t be drawn on the difference between the A220-300 and Embraer’s E195-E2, the real competitor. Our performance model shows it’s a close race.
Future Mobile A220 final assembly line already pushing capacity
July 11, 2018, © Leeham News: The order for 60 Airbus A220-300s, when added to the order for 75 A220-100s by Delta Air Lines and the anticipated order for 60 A220-300s by USA start-up carrier Moxy Airlines, nearly fills out the new Mobile (AL) production line through 2024, an LNC analysis reveals.
Construction of the A220 Final Assembly Line (FAL) begins this year. The first delivery is planned for mid-2020.
JetBlue and Moxy show first deliveries in 2020, according to company documents. Delta’s deliveries begin this year from the Airbus Canada Montreal facility, but will shift to the Mobile plant.
What are the prospects for the Airbus A220?
By Bjorn Fehrm
July 11, 2018, © Leeham News.: With the CSeries repainted and rebranded in Airbus colors, will this change its fortunes? The aircraft has been on the market for 10 years and has not been a home run in term of sales.
We look at how the A220 fits in the Airbus lineup and the sales plan the Airbus leaders say they have for the aircraft.
JetBlue orders 60 A220-300s in surprise timing
July 10, 2018, (c) Leeham News: JetBlue announced an order today for 60 Airbus A220-300s, nee Bombardier CS300s. The airline took options on 60 more.
The timing is a surprise–JetBlue previously said it would not be ready to order until toward the end of the year.
The order is a blow to Embraer, which has 60 E-190s in service with JBLU. The airline had orders for 20 more, but delivery had been deferred several times. Industry insiders told LNC the order could be canceled with little or no penalty.
The order is a blow to Embraer for the flip and for the loss of a potential E2 order. The E195-E2 seats slightly fewer passengers and has less range than the A220-300.
JetBlue has a large fleet of Airbus A320ceos, a few A321ceos and a large order book for neos.
CSeries becomes Airbus A220-100 and A220-300
By Bjorn Fehrm
July 10, 2018, © Leeham News.: Airbus launched its new A220 aircraft family today in Toulouse. The event took place at the Airbus Delivery Center at Blagnac airport with the World’s Media invited.
The Bombardier CS100 is now A220-100 and the CS300 is A220-300. The name of the newly branded family was revealed with a flyover of a CS300, sorry, A220-300 painted in Airbus colors and with the A220-300 name on the side.
Figure 1. A220-300 which flew into the A220 launch today. Source: Airbus.
MRJ’s GTF flameout traced to manufacturing issue
Editor’s note: The Farnborough Air Show begins next week. Mitsubishi is expected to have a flying display of the MRJ90 at an international air show for the first time. This is the last of three stories from Mitsubishi’s MRJ program update in Moses Lake (WA) last month.
By Dan Catchpole
July 10, 2018, © Leeham News: An engine flameout in August 2017 that left the Mitsubishi Regional Jet (MRJ) test fleet grounded for several weeks was caused by a manufacturing quality issue on a component in the Pratt & Whitney geared turbofan’s accessory gearbox, according to a Mitsubishi executive.
Source: Mitsubishi.
Related Stories
- MRJ delays over, execs insist (now open to all readers).
- Laser focus for MRJ program (now open to all readers).
MRJ program chief Alex Bellamy said the manufacturing quality problem caused a machined component to suffer a durability issue, leading to flameout.