Oil heading toward $40? Economist still thinks so, with caveats; and: NTSB issues 787 battery report, Azul’s A320/CFM order

Dec. 1, 2014: Adam Pilarski, an economist for the consulting firm Avitas, predicted several years ago that the price of oil would drop to $40bbl. Few believed him. Oil hit $66 this week, on a steady decline over… Read More

Assessment of Lessors in Airbus and Boeing backlogs, narrow- vs wide-body

Subscription Required Introduction Nov. 30, 2014: Airlines now lease about 50% of their aircraft under a variety of mechanisms: operating, finance, leveraged and Islamic leases, just to name a few. There are operating leasing, special purpose and “house”… Read More

MD-11’s final pax flights contains lessons for McBoeing as NSA targets 2030

Boeing’s CEO, Jim McNerney outlines his vision for the next New Small Airplane in this report from Reuters. We believe this will cement Airbus’ dominance in the single-aisle market for the next 15 years. A retrospective of the… Read More

New and Derivative airplanes: Some good, some not; Part 1

First of two parts. Earlier this year, Airbus officials said they will concentrate on improving existing airplanes once the A350 enters service. Boeing followed by saying it would not take any “moonshots” and develop new airplanes, at least… Read More

Assessing the 70-90 seat regional jet sector

Introduction Major orders last week for Bombardier and Mitsubishi and the release of the Airbus Global Market Forecast provide an opportunity to look at market segments that don’t get a lot of attention in the shadow of the… Read More

Odds and Ends: 737 rate hike on cash flow; How the Chicago ATC fire impact unfolded; New PW engine chief

737 rate on on cash flow: The Seattle Times has a good article that described the impact on cash flow the decision by Boeing made to boost 737 production to 52/mo in 2018. The rate hike comes at… Read More

ISTAT Europe Conference in Istanbul: Boeing and Airbus slugging it out with some new twists

Airbus and Boeing squared off once again Monday, this time at the ISTAT Europe conference in Istanbul, once again pretty much over the entire product lines. Boeing’s VP Marketing Randy Tinseth began with two focal points, the 737… Read More

Buckingham lowers Boeing to Underperform (sell), others increasingly bearish

Update: 24/7 Wall Street just published this gloomy outlook about Boeing. Buckingham Research Group today lowered its call on The Boeing Co. from Neutral to Underperform, the equivalent of Hold to Sell. As far as we can tell,… Read More

What order bubble?

Following the Farnborough Air Show last month, media and some aerospace analysts once again began asking the question: is the order bubble done? We retort by saying, “What order bubble?” We have been hearing since 2008 if the… Read More

Odds and Ends: Boeing discounting; A380 analysis; A320neo LEAP

Boeing discounting: Although Boeing alternately acknowledges it’s under price pressure from Airbus or it’s maintaining pricing on its aircraft, UBS aerospace analyst David Strauss concludes that discounting is increasing on the 737 and 777 but is somewhat better… Read More