Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Leeham News and Analysis
- GE testing of giant GE9X engine aims for maturity at entry into service June 30, 2025
- Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 28. June 27, 2025
- Parent agency, FAA often at odds as politics outweighs safety June 26, 2025
- Electric Flight and the Ugly Duckling June 25, 2025
- Engine makers tout “Plan A” but have “Plan B” backups in R&D June 23, 2025
Services are driving revenues and profits in difficult times, Part II
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By Karl Sinclair
May 22, 2025, © Leeham News: In our first look at OEMs in the aviation industry with a significant revenue stream derived from services, LNA analyzed airframe-makers.
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Now the focus shifts to engine and simulator manufacturers, and how after-market sales can pull a company through difficult times. It can even be the model, that a business follows.
Boeing publicizes fourth Chief Aerospace Safety Officer Report
By Bjorn Fehrm
May 21, 2025, © Leeham News: Boeing Chief Aerospace Safety Officer Don Ruhmann publishes his 2025 Safety Report today. Leeham was present in briefings both on the report content (this article) and how the safety work is progressing in view of recent problem areas (a Monday article).
The report describes the work of the dedicated Chief Aerospace Safety Office, established in 2021. The office is focused on preventing accidents by fostering an active safety culture. The 2025 report describes areas where Boeing’s Safety work has been improved and expanded.
This is the fourth report published since Boeing started to share them with the public in 2022.
Boeing’s 2025 annual safety report due this month
By Scott Hamilton
May 20, 2025, © Leeham News: Boeing will release its fourth annual safety report this month. The first was in 2022.
The document is the Chief Aerospace Safety Officer Report (CASO Report). Previous CASO reports outlined programs Boeing adopted since the 2019 737 MAX grounding and safety crises emerged across Boeing Commercial Airplanes.
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Quality control, safety protocols, intimidation, retribution, and retaliation against line workers were highlighted during the MAX accident investigations and whistleblowing accusations at the Renton, Everett (WA), and Charleston (SC) production plants.
Quality control at Spirit AeroSystems, which builds the 737 fuselage and nose sections of the other 7-Series commercial airliners, also emerged as an issue.
The Federal Aviation Administration’s cooperation with Boeing and transfer of inspection and quality authority also came under scrutiny. The FAA revoked Boeing’s “ticketing authority” to certify 737s and 787s as airworthy before delivery, assuming this role itself. FAA inspectors clamped down on Boeing, reviewing previous work and overseeing production lines.
There is no end in sight for the FAA to relax its grip on Boeing. Boeing must meet six Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) before the FAA is convinced that the company has its house in order, allowing production rates to return to pre-MAX grounding levels and boost production for the 787. These KPIs are:
- Employee proficiency measures share of employees currently staffed who are deemed proficient in core skills.
- Notice of Escape (NoE) rework hours measures time performing rework due to non-conforming work from Fabrication and suppliers.
- Supplier shortages measures shortages per day from Fabrication and suppliers.
- Rework hours per airplane measures time spent performing rework in Final Assembly.
- Travelers at factory rollout measures unfinished jobs traveling from Final Assembly.
- Ticketing performance measures quality escapes per ticketed airplane prior to delivery.
Source: Boeing.
The 2024 CASO Report is expected to update these topics and more.
FAA’s data of accident, incidents, often not shared
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By Colleen Mondor
May 19, 2025, © Leeham News: On March 27, acting FAA Administrator Chris Rocheleau testified before the US Senate Commerce Committee on the continued fallout from the Jan. 29 midair collision near Reagan National Airport in Washington (DC) between an American Eagle Airlines CRJ-700 and a US Army helicopter. All aboard both craft died.
In response to repeated questions from several senators about how warning signs about the congested airspace were missed, Rocheleau admitted that the agency needed to be more proactive about future safety issues, saying, “We have to identify trends, we have to get smarter about how we use data, and when we put corrective actions in place, we must execute them.”
FAA history of trend analysis
The FAA has collected safety information on National Airspace System users for decades. While the earliest data contained incident and accident reports drawn from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the agency’s Aviation Incident Data System and the Service Difficulty Reporting System were created in 1978. By the early 1980s, they were stored in the FAA’s “System 2000,” where eventually they were converted into usable formats and transmitted to FAA employees. It was cumbersome, time-consuming, and not entirely accessible. But it was a start, and by 1988, as listed in the following table from the Office of Technology Assessment, several other databases had been established.
| Data Type | Database | Federal Agency | Earliest Year* |
| Accident/Incident | Aviation Accident Data System | NTSB | 1962 |
| Accident/Incident | Accident Incident Data System | FAA | 1978 |
| Incident | Aviation Safety Reporting System | NASA | 1975 |
| Incident | Near Midair Collision Database | FAA | 1980 |
| Incident | Operational Error Database | FAA | 1985 |
| Incident | Pilot Deviation Database | FAA | 1985 |
| Mechanical Reliability | Service Difficulty Reporting System | FAA | 1978 |
| Air Operator Data System | FAA | 1980 | |
| Traffic Levels | Air Traffic Activity Database | FAA | Previous 18 months |
| Operational Practices | Air Operator Data System | FAA | 1980 |
| Air Carrier Statistics Database | RSPA | 1968 | |
| Inspection Results | Work Program Management System | FAA | 1987 |
| Violations/Enforcement Actions | Enforcement Information System | FAA | 1963 |
*Earliest year for data stored electronically. RSPA = Research and Special Programs Administration. “Incident” in this database does not always refer to NTSB-determined incidents. Other agencies sometimes use the term for any manner of non-accident events.
Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 22.
By Bjorn Fehrm
May 16, 2025, ©. Leeham News: We do a Corner series about the state of developments to improve the emission situation for Air Transport. We try to understand why development has been slow.
We have since we started in October last year looked at:
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- Alternative, lower emission propulsion technologies, ranging from electric aircraft with batteries as energy source, different propulsion hybrids, and new concepts for jet-fuel and Hydrogen gas turbine engines.
- We have also reviewed recent research on the role of CO2, NOx emissions, and Contrails generated by airliners.
- Two weeks ago, we summarized the present situation around SAF, Sustainable Aviation Fuel.
We examined Alternative 1’s emissions improvement last week and now compare it to the normal improvement in fuel consumption, and thus emissions, that the airline industry is continuously working on.
Services are driving revenues and profits in difficult times, Part I
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By Karl Sinclair
May 15, 2025, © Leeham News: The aerospace industry is a maintenance-intensive operation, where strict regulatory rules drive many requirements.
Assets must be constantly maintained, governed by the time or usage an airline derives from them.
This goes for airframes, engines, and human resources.
Services account for a large part of aerospace corporate profits. Boeing’s Global Services division is the most profitable part of the company. Photo credit: Boeing Global Services.
Some equipment manufacturers derive little or no profits from product sales, but they make lucrative and long-term revenues from attached maintenance contracts.
Political factors are also coming into play in the services segment.
As airlines are forced into a difficult and expensive decision regarding the payment of tariffs on new aircraft they acquire, many could opt for a different strategy.
Older aircraft that were due for replacement with newer, more fuel-efficient jets will be sent into MRO facilities for an additional heavy-maintenance check.
With falling fuel prices playing less of a factor in the acquisition decision, airlines will be tempted to defer deliveries (thus avoiding the payment of tariffs) using their current assets in their installed fleets.
Extending an aircraft’s useful life by another six to seven years will allow carriers to simply wait out the tariff threat when things return to normal.
LNA looks into the growing services revenue segment among various companies in the aviation industry.
The BWB has a long way to go before flying passengers, freight
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By Scott Hamilton
Figure 1. The Horten flying wing developed by the Germans toward the end of World War II. Credit: Michael Jorgensen via BBC.
May 12, 2025, © Leeham News: The Blended Wing Body airplane concept has been around for decades. Its cousins, if you will, appeared in the form of flying wings. The Germans developed the Horten at the end of World War II; it never made it into service.
Northrop Grumman developed propeller- and jet-powered flying wings after World War II. Neither concept was picked up by the US Air Force.
Figure 2. The Northrop YB-49 flying wing developed post-World War II. Credit: Northrop.
It wasn’t until development of the Northrop Grumman B-2 bomber that the flhing wing, or Blended Wing Body, aircraft became an operational reality.
Figure 3. Northrop Grumman B-2 bomber. The similarities with the JetZero Z4 BWB are apparent. Credit: Northrop Grumman.
But none has been able to make the leap into commercial aviation service. JetZero hopes to make this leap in the early 2030s, but it’s got a lot to accomplish between now and then.
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JetZero readies effort for private equity funding
Many of these challenges were outlined by LNA last week. But there are more.
Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 21.
By Bjorn Fehrm
May 9, 2025, ©. Leeham News: We do a Corner series about the state of developments to improve the emission situation for Air Transport. We try to understand why development has been slow.
Since we started in October last year, we have looked at:
- Alternative, lower emission propulsion technologies, ranging from electric aircraft with batteries as energy source, different propulsion hybrids, and new concepts for Jet-fuel and Hydrogen gas turbine engines.
- We have also reviewed recent research on the role of CO2, NOx emissions, and Contrails generated by airliners in global warming.
- Two weeks ago, we summarized the present situation around SAF, Sustainable Aviation Fuel.
Last week, we listed some base data about the present situation for Global Air Transport. We will now use this data to calculate the effect of air transport on global warming from the three alternatives.
Does an A220-500 need a new wing and engines? Part 2.
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By Bjorn Fehrm
May 5, 2025, © Leeham News: We started the articles series about stretching the A220 to a capacity in the A320neo range last week by going through the development of the A220-100 and -300, how it’s designed and compares to the competition in the 100 to 140 seat segment.
Now, we analyze what we need to change to bring the capacity to the level of the A320neo and whether changes to the wing and engines, in addition to prolonging the fuselage, are necessary when we increase its capacity.
We use the Leeham Aircraft Performance and Cost Model (APCM) to look at the design data for the A220-300 and discuss what it will mean to make the different changes.
Figure 1. A rendering of an A220-500. Source: Leeham Co.
Summary:
- The A220-300 has field and range performance that matches an A320neo.
- As we increase the length of the A220 fuselage to match the seating capacity of the A320neo, we run into tricky trade situations regarding range and field performance for an A220-500.
Embraer downplays tariff impact on 2025 results
May 6, 2025, © Leeham News: Embraer CEO Francisco Gomes Neto sought to reassure investors on Tuesday, emphasizing the limited effect of new U.S. tariffs on the company’s operations as its Q1 2025 results were published.
“Our initial analysis points towards limited impact and we remain confident in and reiterate our 2025 guidance,” Gomes Neto said. He added that the company is “working on initiatives to limit impact of U.S. tariffs on our business.”
Gomes Neto credited the resilience in part to its high U.S. content, with Embraer aircraft incorporating substantial American-sourced components and systems—a factor that helps blunt the impact of cross-border tariffs.
But he added: “We join other companies in calling for a return to zero tariffs… for a highly globalised industry.” Read more