Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Leeham News and Analysis
- 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
- Boeing First Quarter Results: Tariffs, Return flights, $10.55bn asset sale April 23, 2025
Wake up notice to IAM, SPEEA and WA State
The news that Boeing is leaning toward proceeding with a new airplane instead of a re-engined 737 serves as yet another wake-up call for Boeing’s labor unions and Washington State officials to get their act together.
As we report in the preceding post, Boeing may forget about re-engining the 737, a widely-held belief that the company would do so. If Boeing did, Washington State and the unions that build Boeing’s airplanes here were assured jobs would be safe as long as these legacy programs remained in production.
We have been speech-i-fying on this topic for a year in which we have repeatedly warned that once a clean-sheet airplane program is undertaken, Washington officials and the unions need to be concerned that Boeing will compete the production with other states to get better business and labor costs.
USTR on subsidizing the A350
US Trade Rep. Ron Kirk was in Seattle this week and Aubry Cohen of The Seattle P-I has this story about the prospect of further European subsidies (or Reimbursable Launch Aid in Airbus jargon) for the A350.
KC-X’s latest twist: Contract after the election
Update, May 5:
The Pentagon denied the Defense News story. Here’s Defense News’ own report.
Original Post:
In a move that probably surprises no one, the Defense Department says it will issue the contract for the KC-X on November 12, which just happens to be after the November elections.
Here’s the story from Defense News.
Gollleeee. Whoda thunk it?
Tit for tat on KC-X
Stephen Trimble of Flight Global has EADS’ opening shot on talking point in Congress. It is brutally frank and takes off the gloves often kept on by Northrop Grumman in the KC-X competition.
We’ve seen–but do not yet have–Boeing’s resp0nse. We’ll post it when obtained.
Update: Boeing’s response is after the jump:
Profile of 737 Lean Production
MSNBC has this long profile of the 737 Lean production system. This is a nice follow-on to an unrelated piece about 777 Lean production.
787, A350 “way over-ordered,” says UBS
In an analysis that might create heartburn for any number of people at any number of levels, David Strauss and his aerospace team at UBS Securities issued a report Tuesday (April 27) that concludes the next-generation of airplanes–the Boeing 787 and Airbus A350–are “way” over-ordered.
The “good” news (tongue-in-cheek, for those who don’t pick up on our odd humor) doesn’t stop there. UBS concludes that the Boeing 777, Airbus A330 and Airbus A320 are also over-ordered.
The Boeing 737 is under-ordered, in the UBS view, but this doesn’t relieve the concerns about this order-book, either, according to UBS.
KC-X: price dumping and assessing risk
Now that EADS said it will bid after all for the KC-X contract, questions have been raised about the possibility EADS will offer pricing that is below its costs (or “price-dumping”) to win the contract. Boeing supporters, and Boeing itself, have raised this concern.
On the other side, EADS is focusing on the fact its KC-45 is in production and in flight tests while Boeing’s proposed KC-767 NewGen is a conceptual airplane that is a riskier prospect.
How are these two particular concerns dealt with?