Southwest Air’s expansion to resume next year, says CEO

Southwest Airlines plans to complete the integration of AirTran by the end of this year, positioning the carrier to resume expansion into new markets, says CEO Gary Kelly. In an interview last week at WN’s Dallas headquarters, Kelly… Read More

Southwest sticks with continuous hub/point-to-point as core business strategy

American Airlines plans to shift from continuous hubbing at three of its major cities–an operational process where flights flow throughout the day–to return to traditional peak-and-valley hubbing. But Southwest Airlines, despite many significant changes to its business model… Read More

Bombardier CSeries program update

Bombardier’s investors day last week covered a lot of ground across its entire business line, including rail, corporate aircraft, as well as commercial aerospace. The area of most interest, of course, is on the CSeries, the all-new aircraft… Read More

Embraer continues and refines its strategy at the low-end of 100-149 seat sector

While Airbus and Boeing slug it out in the competition for the duopoly and Bombardier struggles to gain respect as an emerging mainline jetliner producer, Embraer continues and refines its strategy in the smaller-end of the jet market… Read More

CSeries first flight may be Sunday, says Reuters

The thrice-delayed first flight of the Bombardier CSeries may come Sunday, reports Reuters. We previously posted some thoughts on the pending first flight. We expanded on these thoughts in our e-mail newsletter Aug. 26. Below is the entire… Read More

Fuel burn A320 v 737

While on our SAS flight from Longyearbyen to Oslo, we browsed the SAS magazine airplane descriptions and it contained fuel burn per seat in litres for each fleet type. SAS operates the 319/320/321 and 737-600/700/800. Seating is as… Read More

Single-Aisle backlog market share between the Big Two

The rivalry between Airbus and Boeing intensified in recent weeks with Airbus landing another major order from a previously exclusive Boeing customer, LionAir. Boeing announced another major order just a day later, Ryanair, retaining exclusivity with this customer…. Read More

100-149 seat market isn’t ‘Bermuda Triangle’ for the right airplanes

A new study released today by AirInsight concludes the oft-maligned 100-149 seat market is viable, and not a ‘Bermuda Triangle,’ if the right airplane is developed to compete within it. We’re a co-author of the study, Market Analysis… Read More

Allegiant Air selects A319

Allegiant Air, an Ultra-Low Cost Carrier in the US, announced that it will lease Airbus A319s from GECAS and purchase more from The Philippines’ Cebu Air. Update: Here is the Allegiant presentation. This confirms Allegiant is getting the… Read More

Aircraft demand: Comparing the Big Four OEMs

(Note: The Market Outlook information was released July 3; this piece contains information that was embargoed to July 5.) Boeing updated its 20 year forecast, from 2012-2031, upping the total market demand about 600 airplanes. In its annual… Read More