Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Boeing: Our 737 MAX product range will come to market as planned despite changes
By Bjorn Fehrm
Mike Delaney. Source: Boeing
July 13, 2016, ©. Leeham Co, Farnborough Air Show: Mike Delaney, Boeing’s Vice president and General manager for Aircraft development in the Commercial Airplane division, promises unchanged delivery times despite late changes to the company’s 737 MAX line-up.
Delaney went through the changes for the MAX program as part of a larger presentation, outlining the status for all ongoing aircraft developments within Boeing at the ongoing Farnborough Air Show.
The original 737 MAX 7 seen in the picture has just grown 12 seats. Source: Boeing
AirAsia: More and more congestion for Asian airports
By Bjorn Fehrm
July 13, 2016, ©. Leeham Co, Farnborough Air Show: AirAsia Group Chief Executive Tony Fernandes said yesterday that increased congestion the group has seen for several of the airports AirAsia operates to in the Asian market motivated an order for 100 Airbus A321neos.
“We are slot constrained on several of our destinations and when we can’t get any more slots from an airport, it’s better to take-off with the 50 more passengers that an A321neo offers rather than the 180 seat our standard A320 have,” said Fernandes.
AirAsia Airbus A321 as ordered yesterday at Farnborough Airshow. Source: Airbus
“The congestion has grown to the point where it will no longer be optimal for AirAsia to only operate with our standard-size aircraft, our fleet of 200 A320ceos with 180 seats, which will be gradually replaced in coming years by our order for 304 A320neos with the same seating,” Fernandes said. Read more
Airbus cuts A380 production to 1/mo (Update)
July 12, 2016, © Leeham Co., Farnborough Air Show: Airbus will lower the production rate of the giant A380 from 18/yr to 12/yr, effective in 2018, the company confirmed after the French newspaper La Tribune first reported the news Tuesday evening Paris Time.
In January, LNC in its annual production rate forecast projected the A380 rate coming down to 12/yr by 2020. More recently Leeham Co. LLC told clients Airbus needed to figure out how to achieve a break-even at one a month (12/yr) and bring rates down sooner.
Leeham News made this production forecast in January, predicting the A380 production rate would have to come down to 1/mo by 2020 The competing 747-8 rate was forecast to come down to 6/yr by 2018. Both rates are coming down two years earlier than forecast.
All this was based on the current backlog and customer quality.
Breaking News: Airbus cuts A380 production rate to 1/mo from 2018
July 11, 2016: La Tribune of Paris just broke a report that Airbus will cut the production rate of the A380 to 1/mo in 2018.
LNC will follow shortly with our own coverage.
Rolls Royce, Microsoft and Singapore Airlines: Time to analyze all that data
By Bjorn Fehrm
Introduction
July 12, 2016, ©. Leeham Co. Farnborough Air Show: Rolls Royce announced a strategic agreement for big Data analysis with Microsoft at yesterday’s Farnborough Air show. Rolls-Royce for years has been monitoring the health of their operational engines run under TotaICare services agreements. This monitoring has been performed on rather modest data samples from the aircraft’s engines.
It is now time to analyze all the information available from the engines and the airframe to gain further operational advantages like lower fuel burn, higher in service reliability or lower maintenance costs. We are then talking about data volumes in another ball-park than what has been captured and analyzed under TotalCare so far.
Singapore Airlines Airbus A350-900 with Rolls-Royce engines. Source: Airbus
“Engine data monitoring has primarily been done up until now to ensure reliable operation and to recognize developing problems in their infancy,” says Rolls-Royce Senior Vice President Service Tom Palmer. “With the help of Microsoft and their world wide Azure cloud computing platform, we can now take engine and airframe operations analysis to the next level. This will ensure that we further reduce our customers fuel consumption and provide them with a more cost effective maintenance program. We will take the digitization of engine and aircraft operations to the next level.” Read more
Pontifications: New war of words erupts
By Scott Hamilton
July 11, 2016, © Leeham Co., Farnborough Air Show: The war of words between Airbus and Boeing is legendary, and it continued unabated today, the first day of the Farnborough Air Show.
- See my column in Forbes for a rundown of the first day’s orders at the Farnborough Air Show.
Boeing continue its refrain during its press briefing that its airplanes are better than Airbus. Airbus returned fire moments later in its own press conference that followed Boeing’s.
But the more interesting war that is emerging is between Embraer and Bombardier.
Bombardier sees more C Series orders this year
Our coverage of the Farnborough Air Show begins today with an interview with Fred Comer, president of Bombardier Commercial Aircraft. There will be paywall and freewall posts throughout the FIA16 this week.
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Introduction
July 10, 2016, © Leeham Co., Farnborough Air Show: Winning major orders from Air
Fred Comer, president of Bombardier Commercial Aircraft.
Canada and Delta Air Lines earlier this year and the entry into service of the CS100 this Friday with launch customer Swiss International Air should give Bombardier’s bet-the-company gamble a boost for more orders this year.
This is the prediction by Fred Comer, president of Bombardier Commercial Aircraft.
During an interview with LNC on a media demo flight of the CS100 at the Farnborough Air Show, Comer said the smaller BBD can compete with the behemoths Airbus and Boeing for orders in the 125-150 seat sector.
Summary
Comer says:
- Boeing’s prospective 737-7.5 still won’t be competitive.
- The CS100 is better than the Embraer EJet-E2.
- Embraer’s complaints of unfair competition because of Canadian government investment are unfounded.
Read more
Bombardier’s CS100 media flight demonstrates quiet
July 10, 2016, (c) Leeham Co.: Our coverage of the Farnborough Air Show (#FIA16 on Twitter) begins today, with a media flight on the Bombardier CS100. The day was rainy and somewhat turbulent until the flight got above the clouds. Some videos are jumpy as a result.
There are several videos about the flight and some with interviews following the page break.
Quiet taxi
The first video is intended to demonstrate the quiet Pratt & Whitney engines during taxi.
Boeing MAX program progresses well
Our coverage of the Farnborough Air Show begins today with an interview with Keith Leverkuhn, VP and GM of the Boeing 737 program. There will be a combination of paywall and freewall posts.
Subscription Required
Introduction
July 10, 2016, © Leeham Co.: Farnborough Air Show: The Boeing 737 MAX flight test
Keith Leverkuhn, VP and GM of the Boeing 737 program. AIN Online photo via Google Images.
program is going well, with the company looking for ways to add improvements to the airplane even before it enters service next year.
Improvements, which include airplane and engine components, are intended to provide dispatch reliability close to the 99.98% of the 737 NG and extend on-wing time for the reliable CFM56 engine that has powered the 737 since introduction of the 737-300 in 1984, says Keith Leverkuhn, VP and GM of the 737 program.
Summary
- Many of the major tests are completed.
- Boeing, CFM see opportunities to insert components into the LEAP-1B during flight testing to extend on-wing time from entry-into-service.
- MAX 7X (or “7.5”) can be done within the “confines” of the current MAX program.
- A larger MAX isn’t ready to go yet.
Bjorn’s Corner: Over the oceans, use FANS
By Bjorn Fehrm
08 July 2016, ©. Leeham Co: We have over the last Corners described the future Air Traffic Management systems as a combination of ADS-B and Controller-Pilot Data Link Communications, CPDLC.
What to do when there are no ground stations that can receive the ADS-B broadcast of the aircraft’s position and where it’s going? Or the aircraft’s VHF based CPDLC?
We now talk about crossing the large waters where there are no ground stations for neither ADS-B signals nor VHF communications, whether by voice or data.
Figure 1. North Atlantic Tracks (NAT) going eastbound. Source: Nav Canada
The solutions over these Oceanic areas have to be based on the aircraft following predetermined tracks, Figure 1, and continuously issuing position reports to ground controllers that keep the aircraft separated along the tracks based on the reports. We now cover how this has been done historically and the way forward.