Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Leeham News and Analysis
- Airbus sees Boeing as medium-term competitor, with Comac next June 14, 2025
- Boeing bullish on 20-year forecast, despite short-term headwinds June 14, 2025
- Embraer’s 20-year market forecast under 150 seats: fewer turboprops, jets about the same June 14, 2025
- Airbus Canada CEO: Airbus is here to stay in Canada June 14, 2025
- Little known, most unknown in Air India 171 crash June 13, 2025
Boeing completes 737 wing production expansion on the way to 42/mo
Boeing completed expansion of a facility at its Renton (WA) 737 plant where it makes wings, where productions rates will climb from 31.5/mo to 35/mo this year and 42/mo in the near future. The company is studying taking rates to as high as 60/mo, as well as where it will assemble the 737RE.
In an internal daily news distribution, Boeing wrote:
The new line is located in Final Assembly just north of the old location, where employees install hydraulics and electrical systems into wings that are built in a different building. Mechanics have about three months to become accustomed to the new line before rates go up.
“It’s the best possible scenario for rate break,” said Ron Karnes, general manager of Seal, Test and Paint and Systems Installation. “Early implementation, a new area and all that time to practice — it’s a very good plan.”
Key to the line’s success are the inputs made by mechanics during six Accelerated Improvement Workshops held over the last year. Workshop participants included people from all parts of the wings value stream and across the shifts.
Earthquake hits Wash DC area; talking about natural disaster risk
A 5.8 earthquake hit the Washington (DC) area, centered about 50 miles southwest but felt as far south as North Carolina and as far north as Boston. No serious damage appears to have been done.
Normally we wouldn’t remark on this, but as it happens, just yesterday we were talking with a Seattle-area person with direct interest in where Boeing builds assembly sites. We naturally talked about Boeing’s 787 site in Charleston (SC) and the bombshell dropped by CEO Jim McNerney that Renton (WA) can’t assume it will be where the 737RE will be built (we can’t yet bring ourselves to call this thing the NE737). Among the considerations is natural disaster risk.
787 certification expected this week
Bloomberg News writes that 787 certification may come August 26. In a superb article giving a current assessment of the program, Bloomberg cites Bernstein Research as estimating the first 1,000 airplanes will cost an average of $116m each. The program accounting block–the point at which the 787 will break even–is expected to be at least 1,000 airplanes, according to most forecasts by Wall Street analysts. Boeing’s accounting block historically has been around 400. Boeing should give the accounting block on this program with the third quarter earnings call in October, assuming first delivery in September.
Boeing’s next five weeks
The next five weeks should be pretty exciting for Boeing–and significant.
Last week, the company received certification of the 747-8F from the FAA.
Before the end of the month, the Board of Directors is to receive from Boeing Commercial Aircraft the details of the 737 re-engine program (we sure hope marketing comes up with something better than “NE737”)**; we actually have learned the date of the BOD meeting, but will honor Boeing’s policy of not revealing the date). At this meeting, Authority to Offer the 737RE is expected, with details of just what the airplane is to follow to customers and the public (not sure of the timing).
At that point, we’ll be able to see just how well the 737RE stacks up against the A320neo and how creative Boeing’s engineers have been in taking a 1960s-generation airframe and bringing it forward to the 21st Century.
Name that plane-the 737 re-engine
With Steve Wilhelm of the Puget Sound Business Journal getting a scoop that Boeing is naming the re-engined 737 the NE737, which we were underwhelmed by, and the conversation in the Internet and analyst community about the name, we thought we’d run a Name that Plane contest. It worked for the 7E7; why not for the 737 re-engine?
Even though this is a “contest,” there is no prize.
Here’s what’s out there so far:
Talk of 60 737s a month unjustified, says analyst
Note: According to the Puget Sound Business Journal, the new name for the 737RE is the NE737 (presumably for NewEngine). Dunno about you, but we are underwhelmed.
Note 2: On another topic, Boeing got certification of the 747-8. Delivery is expected next month.
Here is a piece we did this week for Commercial Aviation Online:
| Date: | 18/08/2011 10:30 |
| Source: | Commercial Aviation Online |
| Location: | Seattle |
| By: | Scott Hamilton |
Studies by Boeing to increase production of the 737 to as high as 60 a month cannot be justified by demand through 2020, or even 2030, according to a new analyst report by Wedbush, a Los Angeles-based investment bank.
In a 16 August research note, Wedbush’s aerospace analyst Kenneth Herbert believes a rate of 50 per month can be supported by 2015 through 2020, but that global demand and competition from new entrants in the 100-200-seat market means Boeing and Airbus can only justify this rate for the 737 and A320 families.
Wedbush also predicts that Boeing will keep production of the 737 re-engine at Renton (WA). Boeing’s CEO, Jim McNerney, said on the manufacturer’s second quarter earnings call that Renton was not the automatic choice for assembling the 737 re-engine and that other options would be considered. Boeing commercial airplanes CEO Jim Albaugh said separately that it will be six-eight months before a decision on the assembly site will be made.
Flightblogger on 737RE, Aeroturbopower on A320 v 737-800
Two very interesting posts came up today.
The first is from Aeroturbopower, a blog that concentrates on engines and engine-related stuff. In today’s post, Aeroturbopower has a very interesting analysis on fuel burn on the Airbus A320 vs the Boeing 737-800. The results may surprise you, given the very effective messaging campaign by Boeing and the equally poor messaging campaign by Airbus.
The second posting, by Fightblogger, confirms what we wrote about a week ago: that Boeing and CFM are close to choosing the 66 inch fan for the 737RE. Flightblogger has more detail than we did and provides a good overview of what the 737RE will likely be.
Milestone in aerial refueling: the unmanned KC-10
Very clever and creative flying, as reported here.