Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Leeham News and Analysis
- 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
- Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 27. June 20, 2025
Airbus announces 68 A320s, A333 “Lite” at Chinese air show
Airbus loves air shows as platforms for announcements, and the current event in China is no exception.
Airbus announced orders for 68 A320ceos and neos and launched the A330-300 Lite program (though no orders yet). Reports suggest Airbus expects the first Lite orders from China, hence the location and announcement at the air show.
Zhejiang Long Airlines signed an MOU for 11 ceos and 9 neos. This is a start-up carrier.
Qingdao Airlines ordered five ceos and 18 neos.
BOC Aviation, the long-established leasing company owned by the Bank of China, placed an order for 12 neos and 13 ceos.
The A333 has a range of 3,000nm and will carry about 400 passengers. The weight is 200 tons and Airbus says it will burn 15% less fuel than the all-up, 6,100nm version. Aviation Week has some additional detail.
Separately, Bloomberg reports that Vietjet (Vietnam) will order up to 100 A320 family airplanes. The order could be announced today, Bloomberg says.
- We’ve not commented on the Lufthansa Airlines order for Airbus A350-900s and Boeing 777-9s to any great extent because the deal was pretty straight-forward. But this Aviation Week article has a comment from the LH CEO saying it by-passed the 787-10 because its range (at 7,000nm) is to short. This is interesting in context of Boeing’s statements that the 787-10 will cover about 90% of the mission requirements of airlines. Just an observation.
Busy decade ahead for new, derivative airplane EIS dates
The next decade will see an extraordinary number of new and derivative airplanes entering service, beginning next year with the Boeing 787-9 and ending in 2022 with what we believe will be a replacement for the Airbus A330.
Bombardier’s CS100 is currently planned to enter service in around September next year, 12 months after its first flight on September 16, 2013, but we think EIS will slip to early 2015. Bombardier seems to be laying the groundwork for this in statements that it will reassess the EIS date in a few months.
Beginning with the 787-9, there is a steady stream of EIS dates–and a couple of end-production dates of current generation airplanes.
This chart captures the airplanes and their dates. Most dates are based on firm announcements from the OEMs, but we’ve adjusted some based on market intelligence and our own estimates.
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The arrows to certain points within years are not necessarily representative of specific timelines within that year. OEMs generally are not too specific about and EIS date, preferring to say “first half” or “second half” or some derivative of ambiguity. The only specific that we’re aware of is Boeing’s revised EIS of the 737 MAX, from 4Q2017 to July 2017. Although the Ascend data base is quite specific, we’ve not attempted to be highly specific in this chart. (Have we been specific enough about all this?)
Readers will note that we have the ARJ21 arrow going to a question mark. This airplane is already seven years late, and supposedly it’s going to enter service next year, but we aren’t banking on this at all. COMAC/AVIC, producer of the ARJ21, has a dismal record of meeting target dates. Accordingly, although COMAC now says the EIS for the C919 is 2017, we’ve got this in 2018–and even this is likely generous.
Lufthansa splits wide-body order between Airbus and Boeing
Lufthansa Airlines announced its long-expected wide-body order, for 59 Airbus A350-900s and Boeing 777-9Xs.
Airbus won a firm order for 25 with options for 25 more. Boeing’s press release didn’t disclose options.
This is a big win for both companies in a hard-fought contest. LH had long said it expected to buy only from one company, and the split order means neither OEM came away empty handed. But Boeing did not get an order for the 787-10, which was part of the package being offered to LH. Nor did it receive an order for the 747-8I, which it had hoped to obtain as well.
787-9 first flight follow-up
Here is some “morning after” coverage of the first flight of the Boeing 787-9.
- The Wall Street Journal has this article with some detail about pricing, design improvements and other differences between the 789 and the 788. Via Google News so it should be accessible to all Readers.
- CNET has this report, along with a compilation of photos.
- The Seattle Post Intelligencer has this photo array.
- Aviation Week has this report, with its usual devotion to detail.
- The Everett Herald has this report.
Boeing 787-9 departs on first flight
The Boeing 787-9 left this morning on its first flight at 11:02 AM PDT. We discussed the implications of this first flight on Sept. 13.
We were at the first flight departure at Paine Field, Everett (WA), for what was essentially a photo-op (this isn’t a complaint); no Boeing officials were made available to talk with. The flight departed an hour later than schedule. As we write this, the flight is still airborne, due to land at Boeing Field at 4pm 3pm (back to original schedule) PDT. A press conference with the pilots follows, though we will miss this.
While waiting, a LAN 787-8 also prepared to depart on a test flight. Compared with the 787-9, the 788 is a stubby little airplane and the 789 much sleeker. We only imagine what the even longer 787-10 will look like next to its siblings.
Here are some videos we shot. We’ll start with the take-off, followed by other videos shot while waiting for first flight.
787-9 first flight today
The first flight of the Boeing 787-9 is scheduled for 10am PDT today. The Weather forecast is cloudy but no rain until this afternoon. Landing is about 3pm.
The first flight will be webcast here.
We’ll be on-site for the first flight, so we will be Tweeting @leehamnews but won’t be in a position to post here until later today.