Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Leeham News and Analysis
- Boeing’s 737 North Line and the Everett factory: in transition now June 9, 2025
- Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 25. June 6, 2025
- New RISE powerplant benefits from decades of GE research and development June 5, 2025
- Engine makers emphasizing durability, reliability June 4, 2025
- Boeing CEO: Lessons learned are key to certification of 737-7/10 and 777X June 2, 2025
Impact of Russian Airspace Closure on Finnair
Subscription Required
By Bjorn Fehrm
Introduction
April 28, 2022, © Leeham News: Last week, we started an article series that looks at the impact of the closure of the Russian airspace for Western airlines.
We start with analyzing how Finnair’s cost base changes as it routes Helsinki to Tokyo has to fly over the north pole and then down to Tokyo instead of over Russia. How will this affect the airline’s costs and the payload carrying capacity of the aircraft?
Summary
- The costs for Finnair on the route increase significantly.
- Part of this increase is increased fuel prices, affecting all airlines. Others are tied to avoiding Russian airspace.
All Air Lease Corp’s single-aisle airplanes are delayed
By Laura Mueller
Airfinance Journal, April 14, 2022
Reprinted with permission
April 27, 2022, © Airfinance Journal: Air Lease Corp’s executive chairman, Steven Udvar-Hazy, told Airfinance Journal that “every one” of the lessor’s single-aisle Airbus aircraft is delayed.
Steven Udvar-Hazy. Source: Air Lease Corp.
“Our Boeing 737 Max deliveries also are delayed this year,” he said. “The supply chain, starting with the engine manufacturers, the people who make landing gear, the people who make avionics… are not equipped today to meet the production goals of the two manufacturers.”
Add in increased absenteeism and working from home, and it is clear further delays are ahead. “You can’t build airplanes on a Zoom call.”
The situation means Airbus and Boeing are “faced with very difficult strategies”.
ALC’s chief executive officer, John Plueger, echoed those thoughts. He told a JP Morgan conference on 16 March that 18% of the Airbus workforce was off due to Covid-related matters. Plueger confirmed to Airfinance Journal that Airbus told him that figure, but the information was “probably a month or two old” as of April.
“It would not surprise me to get further delays beyond that,” he added.
Boeing delays 777X first delivery delayed until 2025; posts $1.2 B loss in first quarter
UPDATED
April 27, 2022, © Leeham News: Boeing’s 777X program took another hit Wednesday, when the company said it won’t deliver the first 777-9 until 2025 due to new delays getting the plane certified. It has halted 777-9 production through 2023, which the company expects to incur $1.5 billion in abnormal costs until the assembly line starts moving again.
The aerospace giant’s Q1 earnings report is soaked in red ink: a $1.2 billion net loss, a $3.6 billion loss in free cash flow and a $2.06 GAAP loss per share and a $2.75 core (non-GAAP) loss per share. The results fell far below the roughly 20 cents per share loss and $15 billion expected by Wall Street analysts.
The company said it has filed a 787 certification plan with federal regulators, as it tries to resume deliveries of its premier twin-aisle jetliner.
Boeing Defense booked more than $1 billion in charges from two programs–Air Force One replacement and T-7 Red Hawk trainer for the U.S. Air Force. Read more
AvWeek MRO Event: Kansas Mod lands first 777-300ER P2F order
April 26, 2022, © Leeham News: Kansas Modification Center/NIAR WERX won an
order for three conversions from Boeing 777-300ER passenger aircraft to freighters from Backbone Freighter Leasing, an affiliation of Dr. Peters Group, a European lessor. Backbone also optioned seven conversions.
This is the first order for KMC/NIAR WERX. The deal was announced today at the Aviation Week MRO Americas conference in Dallas. Deliveries are in 2024 and 2025. Options have delivery slots from 2025 through 2027. The airplanes are ex-Emirates Airline aircraft. The first plane entered flight testing for loads analysis Sunday.
KMC forecasts certification by the Federal Aviation Administration in the second quarter of 2024. This conversion features a forward cargo door as opposed to the aft door in conversions offered by IAI Bedek and Mammoth Freighters. IAI has orders for 22 conversions from EVA, Emirates and lessor AerCap (which inherited this deal from GECAS upon acquisition of this lessor). AerCap has options for 15 more conversions, also from GECAS. Entry into service with AerCap is scheduled for this year.
Mammoth has an order for two conversions from Canada’s CargoJet and options for three more. Mammoth says EIS is targeted for the second half of 2023, a timeline some believe is optimistic.
Airbus aggressively seeks to reduce corporate, industry emissions footprint
Subscription Required
By Scott Hamilton
April 25, 2022, © Leeham News: Airbus is charging ahead with its ZEROe ecoAviation research and development, focused on hydrogen (H2) power while supporting efforts for Sustainable Aviation Fuel in the meantime. Airbus targets 2035 for a commercial airliner, which will almost certainly be a turboprop—not a jet.
Boeing previously said it believes Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) is the near-term answer for greening up commercial aviation. By 2030, all its aircraft will be capable of 100% SAF use. Airbus is heading down this path, too.
Airbus believes H2 is the best solution to achieving zero emissions. Battery-powered airplanes and eVTOLs and battery-hybrids are other alternatives. Each has big technical and/or supply challenges to overcome.
In a webinar last week, Amanda Simpson, VP of Research and Technology for Airbus, said designing an entirely new airplane for H2 opens the possibility of an entirely new, high-tech wing design for which other research has been underway. A “Wing of Tomorrow” has been under development for years. Airbus already is pursuing an UpNext eXtra Performance Wing. For shorthand, LNA will identify this as the UNePW.
Boeing appears finally on track to resume 787 deliveries
April 25, 2022, © Leeham News: Boeing appears on a path to resume deliveries of the 787 in the second half of this year.
By Scott Hamilton
Filings by American and United airlines with the US Securities and Exchange Commission show each carrier expects 787s later this year. And, according to a Reuters report, Boeing privately told the airlines and the supply chain that deliveries will resume in the second half.
Boeing declined comment.
A United 8-K filings (an unscheduled filing) indicate two deliveries in the third quarter and another four in the fourth quester. These are 787-10s. American indicates seven Dreamliner deliveries by year-end in its 10Q filing. These are 787-8s.
At the start of this year, American said it expected deliveries to resume in April. Boeing, on its 4Q2021 earnings call, did not confirm this but it didn’t dispute it, either. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) oversees when Boeing can resume deliveries.
Deliveries were suspended in October 2020 when a gap the size of a piece of paper (ie, the thickness of 0.004 inches*) was found in new production airplanes. While not a safety of flight issue, the gap was a non-conforming production requirement. The FAA asked Boeing to halt deliveries while the scope of the problem was determined, and a fix identified. Coming during the grounding of the 737 MAX, coupled with increased scrutiny of Boeing and the FAA, scoping the breadth of the gap problem and determining a fix has taken an agonizingly long time. During this period, the FAA rescinded Boeing’s authority to certify each 787 for delivery, assuming this responsibility instead.
Bjorn’s Corner: Sustainable Air Transport. Part 16. Thrust generation
April 22, 2022, ©. Leeham News: Last week, we examined propulsion system alternatives and their principal advantages and disadvantages. Now we go deeper into these alternatives.
All propulsion systems for aircraft use a propulsion device like a propeller or a fan to generate forward thrust. We use this article to understand how these work and their characteristics before we go into how we create the shaft power to drive them.
Figure 1. The propulsive efficiency as a function of speed for different thrust generating concepts. Source: Aircraft propellers, is there a future? MPDI document.
Impact of Russian Airspace Closure
Subscription Required
By Vincent Valery
Introduction
April 21, 2022, © Leeham News: In the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the United Kingdom decided to ban Aeroflot and other Russian airlines from its airspace.
Credit: Finnair
A tit-for-tat escalation led to what would have been unthinkable only weeks prior: Western European and North American commercial airlines can’t fly through Russian airspace. Flight restrictions are essentially back to those that existed for many carriers at the height of the Cold War.
The closure of Russian airspace to Western carriers will impact many routes, notably between Western Europe and East Asia. Flights are now longer, increasing fuel burn and reducing payload capabilities.
While passenger airlines have caught most of the attention, the impact is also severe for cargo airlines. As a result, LNA thought it relevant to start a series about the effects of Russian airspace closure on several standard commercial airline routes.
We will start by providing historical context and listing the impacted passenger airlines.
Summary
- A gradual opening of the Siberian corridor during the USSR;
- The proliferation of routes in the post-soviet era;
- Varying level of impact by airline and route.
Understanding ODAs
Subscription Required
By the Leeham News Team
April 19, 2022, © Leeham News: Following 737 MAX grounding, Boeing was found to have exerted undue influence on their ODA unit and its members.
ODA stands for Organization Designation Authorization. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) designates personnel employed by a company to be its official on-site representatives. The MAX crisis put a spotlight on the Boeing-FAA ODA relationship. Faults were found and the uninformed in many cases thought the existence of ODAs was a scandal. But it’s a system that’s been around for decades, and it’s not limited to Boeing.
Let’s look at exactly what that means as we try to understand the impact on certification schedules at Boeing.
Boeing’s Product Certification Timelines and Challenges
Subscription Required
By the Leeham News Team
April 18, 2022, © Leeham News: US Rep. Peter DeFazio, the chairman of the House Transportation Committee, is on record opposing a certification extension for the Boeing 737-10 Max. Under legislation previously passed by Congress, Boeing has until the end of this year to certify the MAX 10.
Boeing 737-10. Source: Boeing.
DeFazio is a Democrat from Oregon who is not seeking reelection this year. He was a fierce critic of Boeing during the House hearings of the MAX crisis. His opposition to extending the certification timeline for the MAX 10 is bad news for Boeing. It was the path of least resistance to completing the Max 10 certification without implementing a new Engine Indicating and Crew Alerting System (EICAS) system on the airplane. Requiring EICAS will greatly complicate the certification path and future crew training differences with the rest of the 737 Max models..
How did we get here?
In the wake of the two MCAS-related 737 losses, Congress passed new laws regarding Aviation Safety. The most sweeping of them was the Aircraft Certification, Safety, and Accountability Act. This is a broad stroke law addressing 37 different portions of the FAA’s review process. It changes a great many things inside Boeing as well as inside the Federal Aviation Administration.
Let’s look through these changes and see how the process changes will impact things.