Pontifications: bleak near- to mid-term future for Rolls-Royce engine unit

June 15, 2020, © Leeham News: The jet engine division of Rolls-Royce faces an uncertain future because of its own problems, exacerbated by the impact of COVID-19 on commercial airlines. Beset by problems with its Trent 1000, Boeing… Read More

Boeing tells Spirit to pause 737 MAX fuselage production

June 11, 2020, © Leeham News: Spirit Aerosystems, maker of the Boeing 737 fuselages, yesterday said it will lay off 900 workers on the MAX line for three weeks. “Spirit received a letter from Boeing directing Spirit to… Read More

Mitsubishi’s options for the SpaceJet

Subscription Required By Scott Hamilton Introduction June 2, 2020, © Leeham News: Mitsubishi Heavy Industry (MHI) yesterday closed the acquisition of the Bombardier CRJ program. There are 15 CRJs in backlog to complete. But the purpose of the… Read More

Pontifications: New GE Aviation CEO will face big challenges

June 1, 2020, © Leeham News: The new chief executive officer for GE Aviation (GEA) will face huge challenges when he or she succeeds David Joyce when he retires this year, say industry sources. Joyce was named CEO… Read More

Pontifications: Boeing focuses on design, production vs airplane development–for now

By Scott Hamilton May 11, 2020, © Leeham News: Boeing killed development of its alphabet soup of airplane concepts for now. “For now” is a relative term. When Boeing will be ready to show concepts to customers as… Read More

Updated with earnings call: Spirit Aerosystems reports 1Q loss, expect worse 2Q

By Scott Hamilton May 6, 2020, © Leeham News: Spirit Aerosystems, a major supplier to Boeing and Airbus, reported a net loss of $163m for the first quarter. The loss was a negative margin of 15.5% on revenues… Read More

Boeing to cut rates on 787, 777 production; posts big 1Q loss

By Scott Hamilton April 29, 2020 © Leeham News: Boeing will cut production rate of the 787 in half and the 777 from 5/mo to 3/mo in response to the dramatic drop in demand from the COVID crisis…. Read More

Analysis: The collapse of the Boeing-Embraer joint venture

By the Leeham News Team Analysis April 25, 2020, © Leeham News: The Boeing-Embraer joint venture is off. Boeing called off the JV, saying Embraer didn’t satisfy all the conditions required. The impact to Embraer is more profound… Read More

Can a passenger airliner run as a freighter with today’s tariffs? Part 4.

By Bjorn Fehrm Subscription Required Introduction April 23, 2020, © Leeham News: We spent the last weeks checking if passenger airliners used as belly freighters make economic sense. With the present air freight prices, it does. The high… Read More

Supply chain focus: Hexcel’s first 2020 quarter

By Bjorn Fehrm April 22, 2020, ©. Leeham News: With the COVID-19 meltdown of airline traffic and aircraft deliveries, we place a special focus on the airliner industry supply chain in the next months. Hexcel Corporation reported its… Read More