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
McCain puts Boeing, USAF in his sights for $1bn overrun on four tankers
Well, it’s started. See McCain’s letter to the Department of Defense here.
Market sees 737 sales lagging, but matches 2010–so far
Here is a story we did for Commercial Aviation Online.
| Date: | 12/07/2011 11:40 |
| Source: | Commercial Aviation Online |
| Location: | Seattle |
| By: | Scott Hamilton |
Boeing took a drubbing in the headlines from the Paris Air Show as Airbus racked up more than 600 orders for its A320neo family while there were few announcements for the rival 737.
Many of the neo orders and some of the 737 orders have yet to be converted to firm contracts, largely a formality, but through June, Airbus is ahead of Boeing in this market segment. Boeing reported 141 gross orders and 104 net orders for the 737. Airbus reports 706 gross orders and 618 net orders for its A320 family.
Podcast on Classic piston-liners
Innovation Analysis Group has a fascinating podcast with Carlos Gomez, owner of Florida Air Transport, and a discussion of classic piston-liners, including the DC-6, DC-7 and Lockheed Constellation.
A321neo best to replace 757: AirInsight
AirInsight today published a short report comparing the Boeing 737-900ER with the Airbus A321neo and concluded the neo is the best choice to replace the Boeing 757.
See the AirInsight synopsis here.
The report is particularly timely with the pending American Airlines decision we’ve all read so much about.
How will Boeing profit from tanker contract?
Just whenever you think there’s nothing more to write about the air force aerial tanker, more news pops up.
The news that Boeing would first lose $300m on the initial KC-46A tanker contract, and now perhaps another $400m (will there be still more to come?), isn’t particularly surprising.This is on top of the $600m the USAF (read that “taxpayers” agreed to absorb of the first $1bn in excess program costs.
In fact, when the first loss projection was announced, Wall Street aerospace analysts noted the news but shrugged it off as falling under the “what did you expect?” category. We didn’t even both to write about it, except in passing.
Grand jury focuses on convicted felon in airport deal
Scot Spencer is a name some of us will remember as one of the sordid players in commercial aviation.
Spencer and co-investors purchased Braniff II from the Hyatt family in the late 1980s and proceeded to run it into bankruptcy. Out of those ashes rose Braniff III, which promptly also went into bankruptcy. Spencer and some of the same co-investors wound up convicted of bankruptcy fraud. The US Department of Transportation banned Spencer from commercial aviation. It’s been assumed by many that this meant airlines but others believed the ban was much broader.
After serving his time, Spencer wound up in San Bernadino (CA), running another airline (which DOT shut down) and incredibly, this smooth-talker wound up managing the former Norton AFB for a transition to a civilian airport with a goal of commercial airline service.
Airbus affirms A350-800 future, but skeptics doubt it
Airbus confirmed at the Paris Air Show what we reported two weeks earlier, and that is the A350-1000 was going to be rescheduled to allow Rolls-Royce and Airbus to tweak the airplane for more power, longer range and higher payload.
At the same time, Airbus announced an 18 month rescheduling of the A350-800 to divert resources to the A350-900, the first of the three models planned to enter service, now promised for late 2013–a slide of at least a half year already.
In conjunction with the -800’s rescheduling, Airbus announced that 42 orders shifted from the -800 to the -900. While slightly more than 100 orders remain and Airbus denied market questions about whether the -800 will survive, one aerospace analyst would view cancellation of the -800 in a positive light.
Here is the story we did last week for Commercial Aviation Online.
Countdown at American for huge order
American Airlines is believed ready to decide on replacing as many as 250 narrow-bodies in its fleet as early as this week.
The Wall Street Journal published this report Sunday outlining the stakes.
We suggested recently that AA could split the order, sticking with Boeing for the 737-800 to replace more than 200 aging MD-80s; and the Airbus A321neo to replace the more than 100 Boeing 757s.
The competition is a tough one, as The WSJ article details. As for the aircraft, we’re not sure adding A320 Legacy airplanes to the fleet in place of the 737-800, in and of itself, makes a lot of sense unless (1) American needs more airplanes quicker than Boeing can provide to replace the gas-guzzling MD-80s and (2) it’s tied to a deal for the A320/321 neo.
AirInsight will publish a report Tuesday (July 12) examining the economics of which airplane best replaces American’s 757s: the 737-900ER or the A321neo.