Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Embraer gains 125 orders at half-year
John Slattery, chief commercial officer, Embraer Commercial Aircraft. Photo via Google images.
June 17, 2015, Paris Air Show, c. Leeham Co. With focus, as always, on Airbus and Boeing, and an airplane that neither exists nor is about to any time in the near-term (the Middle of the Market aircraft), little attention was paid to Embraer, currently the third of the Big Four commercial aircraft companies.
Embraer finished the Air Show (which essentially ends June 18 for the industrial sector), with 50 orders for the E1 and E2 E-Jets.
John Slattery, the chief commercial officer, said the company is ending the first half of the year with 125 
firm orders for the two platforms. EMB now has 70 customers, headed for its target of 100 by 2017, and an important new customer joined the ranks, albeit through a used airplane transaction. Delta Air Lines will purchase 20 E-190s once a new pilot contract is ratified. The airplanes will be flown by Delta pilots for the mainline carrier, not one of its regional partners.
Engine Alliance undertakes PIPs, but not to level Emirates wants
June 17, 2015, Paris Air Show, c. Leeham Co. Engine Alliance, one of the two power plant suppliers for the Airbus A380, said today that it is undertaking Performance Improvement Package (PIP) upgrades to the GP7200 to lower maintenance and operating costs and to reduce fuel burn.
This contrasts with blunt remarks from Tim Clark, president and COO of Emirates Airlines (EK), that EA has “flat lined” and isn’t undertaking PIPs. Emirates is by far the largest operator of EA-powered A380s but recently ordered the competing Rolls-Royce Trent 900s for EK’s 50 A380s ordered late last year. Clark kept engine selection open at the time.
Dean Athans, Engine Alliance president, told LNC today that the A380 is a low-volume airplane and the
David Athans, president of Engine Alliance
business case for investing in the GP7200 to the level Clark want’s isn’t there.
“Tim is acting in the best interests of Emirates Airline, and he wants to most and the best of GP that he can get,” Athans said in an interview. “I’d do the same thing if I was in his place. He wants a brand new engine. He wants a large GTF or GE9X version for this A380s. I would, too. The position I’m in, looking at the volume and the business case for the A380, it doesn’t enable that level of investment.”
At the Annual General Meeting of the International Air Transport Assn. last week in Miami Beach (FL), Clark told LNC that EA wasn’t willing to invest in the PIPs Clark wanted, and RR is.
Boeing program update at Paris Air Show 2015.
By Bjorn Fehrm
Introduction
June 16, 2015, Paris Air Show, c. Leeham Co: On the second day of the Paris Air show we visited several Boeing briefings. The first was Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA) update with BCA President and CEO Ray Conner. He elected to not do the usual slide show speech as all slides were available as handout. Instead the whole session was turned into a Q&A, which was good. All hot topics were discussed as questions from the audience. As many were also covered in Boeing’s next session, BCA development update, I will handle these there.
The topics that did not come up in the second briefing were Boeing’s Middle of the Market (MOM) studies for a new mid-range aircraft with 200-250 seats and Boeing’s view on the VLA market. Let’s take MOM first. Conner confirmed that Boeing now has identified that there is a market of around 1.000 aircraft over 10 years which is not served by a suitable aircraft. He dismissed this market being covered by Boeing’s 737 MAX 9 or the Airbus A321LR, both being too small and not having enough range. Range requirement from the many airlines they had visited over the last year was 4,500-5,000nm. The MAX 9 and A321LR have advertised ranges of 4,000nm or less.
Conner said the next step is now to study if Boeing can build an aircraft to serve this market at the price required by the market. “We are early in the studies and don’t expect any concrete decision soon.” He could also not answer if any MOM aircraft parts or technologies could be shared with an up-and-coming replacement for the 737 MAX.
Conner said the Very Large Aircraft (VLA) sector “is a small market. We don’t see that people really want to travel to a point for gathering, then go to the next hub together, only to start spreading out again. People want to go direct to their destination. We are happy with serving this market with our 747-8, especially as part of the small market is freighters.”
Dueling market forecasts for the VLA sector
June 16, 2015, Paris Air Show, c. Leeham Co. Dueling forecasts between 
Airbus and Boeing became a bit of a sideshow yesterday, with the differing projections for the Very Large Aircraft (VLA) market coming up at the Airbus Global Market Forecast press conference and in our interview with Kiran Rao, EVP Marketing and Strategy for Airbus.
John Leahy, chief operating officer for customers, continued to project a 20-year demand for the VLA-Passenger sector at 1,200. Boeing’s forecast for the VLA sector, including freighters, is 540.
Airbus on orders this year: You ain’t seen nothing yet
June 15, 2015, Paris Air Show, c. Leeham Co. Boeing predicts 1:1 book:bill (orders to deliveries) this year.
For Airbus, you ain’t seen nothing yet. And it’s not even super-salesman, super-optimist John Leahy doing the talking.
Kiran Rao, EVP Marketing and Strategy, said that after a slow first half of the year, Airbus will come on strong in the second half with a book:bill much greater than 1:1.
Kiran Rao, EVP-Market and Strategy for Airbus
Rao wouldn’t be drawn into a more definitive guidance, however.
Although sales by Airbus and Boeing have been modest this year, Rao scoffed at the suggestion the industry is entering an order trough.
“I’d start by saying you’re not seeing a decline yet. What you see is we have a nice, gentle start to the year and then we usually have a little bit of an uptick toward the end of the year. The year is not over yet, so don’t write anything off yet,” he said. “We’ve got some surprises in store before the end of the year. Not for the [Paris Air] show.”
Airbus COO faces production challenge vs bulging order book
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Introduction
June 15, 2015, Paris Air Show, c. Leeham Co. Airbus, like Boeing, is faced with an embarrassment of riches: too many 
orders for the A320 and A350 production rates that have been announced. There’s pressure from the top commercial officer to hike rates, but the president and chief operating officer says not so fast.
Tom Williams was elevated to the presidency only a few
months ago from his position as EVP-Programs, where he was in charge of production and the Airbus supply chain. Williams, a Scotsman and the first non-French or non-German to be president and COO of Airbus Commercial, ruefully observes he didn’t give up the production and supply chain duties with his new title.
Although Williams agrees with John Leahy, chief operating officer-customers, that demand indicates higher rates are needed for the A320 and A350, the demands on the supply chain for Airbus, as well as the other airframers, also demands caution.
- Summary
- Decision end of this year or early next on A380 production rates.
- A380neo launch aid reported—but it’s premature.
- No decision yet on greater than 50 A320 production rate per month.
- Pondering hike in A350 production rate beyond the 10/mo announced.
- Cabin suppliers a top concern.
Pontifications: National policy, national security
By Scott Hamilton
June 15, 2015, c. Leeham Co. The battle between the the Big Three US carriers, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines, vs the Big Three Middle Eastern carriers, Emirates Airline, Etihad Airways and Qatar Airways, was a big over-hang at the 71st International Air Transportation Assn. Annual General Assembly last week.
The US3 charge that the ME3 have received around $42bn in subsidies and claim continued government support put them at a disadvantage. Loads of information has been reported, with claims and counter-claims going back and forth. But the IATA conference attendees, including members of the media, were looking for sparks to fly between Doug Parker, CEO of American Airlines, who was on a couple of panels and who was voted president of IATA for the next year, Tim Clark, president of Emirates and Akbar Al-Baker, CEO of Qatar.
Hot competition in Middle East, Airframe analysis.
By Bjorn Fehrm
Introduction
June 15, 2015, C. Leeham Co: We have previously written about the interview with Emirates Airline President and COO, Tim Clark, where he says that in the present competition for Emirates’ medium haul 330 seaters, one can see that the extreme hot conditions for Dubai International Airport can cause trouble for aircraft which are dimensioned for normal airport conditions. This will hit a dedicated medium-haul aircraft like the Boeing 787-10 harder than a long-haul aircraft turned medium-haul like the Airbus A350-900.
The latter is designed to take-off with higher weights and has therefore a larger wing and stronger engines; it has more margins in a medium-haul mission. We looked at how the engines react to hot conditions last week and will now look at the airframes.
Summary:
- The airframes have in principal three limitations for hot takeoffs:
- Balanced field length (includes the safety precautions for losing an engine)
- Brake energy absorption restrictions for an aborted take-off
- Tire speed restrictions
- The 787-10 is an optimized mid-range design. In the hot climate of Dubai it has less margins for a take-off with a large payload for a typical flight than a long range design like A350-900.
- We explore where those limits are and how they can affect daily operations.