A320 build rate, Alabama presents proposal to Airbus

Airbus won’t increase the production rate on the A320 family until introduction of the NEO and it’s now become public that Alabama has presented a proposal to Airbus for an assembly plant there. Airbus disclosed the plan to… Read More

The moving numbers, redux, in the A320-737 game

For two years, Boeing claimed the 737NG was 8% more economical (and here) than the Airbus A320. Boeing told media, analysts, everybody who would listen. Boeing illustrated the point before and after the MAX. Here is a recent… Read More

Odds and Ends: A380 & other Airbus tidbits; “SC-787-1” to be airborne soon

A380 & other Airbus tidbits: Aviation Week has this article about the latest on A380 wing cracks in the L brackets, along with some information on the A350 program, A330 production rates, a comment on the price war… Read More

Odds and Ends: Puzzling math remains puzzling in 737 v A320 debate

Puzzling math remains puzzling: Boeing has said for the better part of two years that the 737-800 is 8% more economical than the Airbus A320 and the advantage translates into leads it claims for the MAX over the… Read More

Odds and Ends: 777-9X will create new class of airplane

Boeing 777X: The 777-8X, said to be a replacement for the 777-200, is really sized closer to the 777-300 and the 777-9X is a new class of airplane. See this story for details. A330neo: It’s a story that… Read More

Boeing MAX v Airbus NEO; Fan size and optimizing the LEAP for MAX, Part 2

The war of words between Airbus and Boeing continued unabated at the Pacific Northwest Aerospace Alliance 11th Annual Conference this week in suburban Seattle. As fully expected, Airbus said its planes are better than Boeing and Boeing said… Read More

Malev, Spanair shutdowns add to parked aircraft

Today’s shutdown of Hungary’s Malev Airlines and the recent cessation by Spain’s Spanair adds to the number of parked aircraft and will make it just a little bit more challenging to remarket Boeing 737s and Airbus A320s. As… Read More

CFM aftermarket drives Safran revenues, profits

A recent report by Bernstein Research takes an in-depth look at Safran, the French company that is the parent of Snecma, a joint venture partner with GE to form CFM International. CFM, of course, is the sole-source engine… Read More

Airbus, ATR big losers in Kingfisher turmoil

This is an expanded version of a story we did for Flight Global. Airbus will be hit hard if Kingfisher Airlines of India fails. ATR has already lopped its entire order of turbo-props from its books due to… Read More

Understanding appraisers in aircraft values

There has been an active discussion in the comment section on the “Rate 35” post and the relative merits of appraisals and appraisers with respect to the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737NG. We’ve been involved in the airline… Read More