Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Leeham News and Analysis
- Teamsters, Boeing have a new contract April 29, 2025
- Boeing wants to remarket China’s airplanes. It’s costly and time consuming. April 28, 2025
- Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 19. April 25, 2025
- How good is the C929? Part 2. April 24, 2025
- Boeing First Quarter Results Update: China is 10% of the backlog, with 500 in “Unidentified” April 24, 2025
Can airlines internally rapidly reduce CO2 and delays?
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By Michael Baiada
Special to Leeham News
Michael Baiada
July 31, 2023, © Leeham News: Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), battery- or hydrogen-powered airplanes, eVTOLS and Advanced Air Mobility vehicles get all the headlines when it comes to reducing emissions in commercial aviation.
One area that doesn’t get much in the way of headlines is improvement in the “day of” airline operation. Improvements in ATC or ATM receives most of the attention. But a “single” sky in Europe and “free flight” or “NextGen” Air Traffic Management (ATM) in the USA on the Air Traffic Control (ATC) side remain hypotheticals, largely because of funding and political issues, not to mention that airline delays, congestion and excess CO2 are not an ATC problem.
On the airline side, Alaska Airlines experimented with a software planning program called Airspace Intelligence that saved 2.7 minutes per flight. This doesn’t sound like much, and in the scheme of things, it isn’t. But this amounted to the equivalent of 17m miles driven by cars during the experiment.
But just how well are efforts working around the world that are currently underway to increase airspace and airport efficiency and reduce airline delays, congestion, cancellations, and excess CO2?
For the last four decades airlines and ATC have literally spent hundreds of billions of dollars on new equipment, new aircraft and new technologies. Yet little has changed. Airline delays, congestion, cancellations and excess CO2 happen over and over again.
Of course, the obvious question is Why – Why can’t the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and other authorities solve this problem?
Bjorn’s Corner: New aircraft technologies. Part 23. Efficient flight speeds
By Bjorn Fehrm
July 28, 2023, ©. Leeham News: We touched on efficient flight speeds in Part 21, but it was focused on fuel efficiency and how new technologies require the airliner to fly at new altitude-speed combinations to maximise the fuel efficiency gains.
We now look at how to fly the airliner cost-efficiently, which is slightly different from how to fly it fuel efficiently.
Figure 1. The difference between lowest fuel burn speed (Mmr) and long-range cruise speed Mlrc. Source: Airbus.
The reality behind the eVTOL industry’s hyperbole, Part 3.
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By Bjorn Fehrm
July 27, 2023, © Leeham News: We look at the promises that the VTOL industry has made in their Investor prospects and what the reality is as they come closer to Certification and present their production-level prototypes. We also analyze whether these capabilities will be the final level.
Today we go through the trickiest part of any electric aircraft or eVTOL, the batteries. They are large, very heavy, and the most difficult part to certify on the aircraft, as the battery is dangerous if not designed, produced, and managed correctly.
Figure 1. The Joby Aviation S4 production prototype. Source: Joby Aviation.
Summary:
- The battery system of an eVTOL sets restrictions on the operational usefulness of the category.
- The everyday operational utility of VTOLs is far from the industries’ claims.
Airbus 1H2023 results: Supply chain limits Airbus’ growth
July 26, 2023, © Leeham News: Airbus has presented its results for the first half year of 2023. A few critical suppliers are still Airbus’ constraint for growth.
The orders are there, and the Final Assembly Lines as well. But the supply chain is maxed out, gradually taking Airbus to 75 A321/A320 a month by 2026.
For 2023 things are on track. The company sticks to its 2023 guidance of delivering 720 commercial aircraft with an EBIT adjusted of €6bn and Free cash flow of €3bn.
For 2024 and 2025, Airbus CEO Guillame Faury cautioned that the RTX GTF engine turbine disc inspections could strain an already challenged GTF MRO capacity further.
UPDATED: Boeing posts quarterly loss; increases Commercial production rates
By Bryan Corliss
July 26, 2023, (c) Leeham News — The Boeing Co. on Wednesday reported a quarterly loss of $99 million, due in part to spending tied to production rate increases in its Commercial Airplanes division.
Boeing said that rates on its 737 line in Renton are increasing to 38 a month. The 787 program has increased rates to four a month, with a plan to increase that to five a month by the end of this year.
Boeing is working with suppliers to get rates up to 50 a month on the 737 line sometime in 2025-26. CEO Dave Calhoun said during Wednesday earning call that demand is there for even higher rates.
“I’d love to get to 60 and the market is there for it,” he said. “The industry is short of airplanes by a relatively large margin.”
However, Boeing and its suppliers need to stabilize production at currently projected rates before considering going beyond what’s already been announced, the CEO said. “We’re going to work hard on stability.”
For this year, Boeing said it expects to deliver between 400 and 450 737s, along with 70 to 80 787s.
- Deliveries up at BCA
- China: Boeing hopes for delivery restart
- 777-X production to restart in 2023
- Calhoun ‘intent on proving’ trans-sonic truss
- BDS continues to struggle
Pontifications: Book Review: “Turnaround Time” at United Airlines
Turnaround Time: United an Airline and Its Employees in the Friendly Skies, by Oscar Munoz with Brian DeSpinter. $32.00. Available on Amazon and other outlets.
By Scott Hamilton
July 25, 2023, © Leeham News: Oscar Munoz had been the chief executive officer of United Airlines only about a month when he suffered a massive heart attack that almost killed him. His heart was in such bad shape that he needed a heart transplant.
Munoz was an executive of the railroad company CSX, and on the UAL Board of Directors, scandal erupted at United. Jeff Smisek, the CEO who took over United from the same position at Continental Airlines when UAL and Continental merged in 2010, had agreed to add service between Newark (NJ) and a South Carolina city to appease an executive of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The Port owns and operates Newark (and New York’s LaGuardia and JFK airports). The emerging scandal led to the removal of Smisek, and others involved.
Munoz was a reluctant and somewhat odd choice. He had no airline experience, other than being on the Continental and later United boards of directors. He was in line to become CEO of CSX. He initially turned down being considered for the United CEO position when approached by a fellow UAL Board member. But with the Port Authority scandal, and a broken United which had not fully integrated the merger with Continental, he relented.
Munoz tells his story in Turnaround Time: United an Airline and Its Employees in the Friendly Skies. This newly published book is a combination of an autobiography and the turnaround of a troubled United.
BDS: Another problem for Boeing
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By the Leeham News Team
July 24, 2023, © Leeham News: The Boeing Co’s 2Q2023 earnings call is Wednesday and the company continues to push uphill in its path for full financial recovery.
Last week, we examined Boeing’s challenges this Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA). This week we look at Boeing’s Defense unit, Boeing Defense, Space and Security (BDS). BDS is often overshadowed by BCA’s issues. But BDS has a recent track record of negative margins and negative cash flows.
Fixed priced contracts Boeing won proved to be underbid. BDS has taken a stream of big write-offs that don’t seem to have an end in sight.
This is an excerpt from the 2018 Boeing Company (BA) financial statements (edited for brevity):
Bjorn’s Corner: New aircraft technologies. Part 22. Engine characteristics.
By Bjorn Fehrm
July 21, 2023, ©. Leeham News: Developments in engines and airframe technologies require that future airliners are flown differently to maximize the technology benefit.
After looking at the consequences of new developments for the airframe, we now analyze what engine developments mean for how they will be sized and flown.
Figure 1. The RISE engine from CFM. Source: CFM.
The reality behind the eVTOL industry’s hyperbole, Part 2.
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By Bjorn Fehrm
July 20, 2023, © Leeham News: We look at the promises that VTOL OEMs made in their Investor prospects and the scale-down in capabilities as Certification comes closer. We also analyze whether the reduced capabilities will be the final cuts.
In the end, it’s about how operationally useful real-world eVTOL will be and what mission they do better or cheaper than helicopters. It will decide whether the category will have a breakthrough or not.
Figure 1. The Joby Aviation S4 production prototype. Source: Joby Aviation.
Summary:
- The Investor’s presentations from eVTOL OEMs are full of “up to” for speeds and feeds.
- When we use our aircraft and eVTOL performance model, the reality is well short of the claims.
Pontifications: NASA pulls the plug on electric airplanes
Some odds and ends after three weeks on the road.
- NASA pulls the plug on electric airplane research.
- NASA and Boeing’s Transonic Truss Brace Wing contract.
- Engines and the TTBW.
July 18, 2023, © Leeham News: When NASA gives up on a project, it’s time for others to take notice.
By Scott Hamilton
The agency is best known for space travel. But it funds and undertakes research and development for aeronautics, including commercial aviation. NASA, after all, is the acronym for National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Boeing, and Airbus, benefitted from NASA research in the past. NASA currently is working with Boeing on the transonic truss brace wing concept (TTBW) that could redefine how airplanes are designed and look as early as the end of this decade.
So, what has NASA abandoned? Late last month, the agency pulled the plug on the X-57 electric airplane before the first flight. NASA concluded that the electric and battery technology for the X-57, a small airplane, is too dangerous. NASA wouldn’t even authorize test flights.
It’s worth noting that LNA’s Bjorn Fehrm, an aerospace engineer, called bullshit on electric airplanes in his first of a series of articles way back on June 30, 2017. Billions of dollars have funded some 200 companies pursuing electric airplanes. This is money that could have been invested in expanding production of Sustainable Aviation Fuel, the leading alternative of alternative energy projects.
The current, continued frenzy over alternative energy vehicles is like the 1990s dot com frenzy. And just as the dot com boom went bust, the day is coming soon when the alternative energy book will go bust, too.