Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Leeham News and Analysis
- AIN Media Group Agrees to Acquire Leeham News & Analysis June 17, 2025
- Five for Five: Air India crash points to systemic problems at Boeing that CEO Ortberg must fix June 15, 2025
- 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
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?
Enviro Aerospace conferences this week, next month
Here is a good enviro-aerospace conference coming up next month that provides one of the broadest coverage of topics to anyone interested in the emerging green-aviation issues. Sponsored by the AIAA, the conference
is called Making a Difference: Aerospace Leadership for Energy and Environmental Challenges.
“Making A Difference” has about the best agenda and broad spectrum of speakers we’ve seen of any enviro-aviation conference in the US. Representatives of the FAA, Air Transport Association, Shell [Oil] Global Solutions, the Office of Science and Technology of the Office of the President of the United States, MIT, Billy Glover, Boeing’s top enviro guru, the USAF, Delta Air Lines, EADS, United Technologies (parent of Pratt & Whitney), NASA and a number of other top-level organizations, agencies and companies are speakers. This event is May 11-12 in Washington (DC).
This follows an event this week (April 27-29), also in Washington, entitled Advanced Biofuels leadership Conference. The Air Transport Associationm United Airlines, Lufthansa, the FAA’s CAAFI bio-fuels group, FedEX, several biofuels companies, UOP (the Honeywell company at the forefront of aviation biofuels) and US Airways are among the companies, agencies and groups at this conference.
These two conferences provide the broadest possible coverage of these enviro-aerospace topics.
Boeing’s 1Q2010 results
Boeing released its first quarter results today.
Here is the 12 page PDF financial presentation.
Earnings call begins: