Odds and Ends: More from the Airbus Innovation Days

We have some follow-up to our trip last week to the Airbus Innovation Days: A350 Program: Aviation Week has this article about the A350 program, noting that the A350-800 seems to be suffering from from benign neglect. A350… Read More

Airbus Innovation Days: synopsis of a lot of stuff

We’ve been at the Airbus Innovation Days in Toulouse, with about 200 others from around the globe. Here are some highlights: A380 wing rib issues: As reported previously in various media, Tom Williams, EVP-programs, outlined the issues with… 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: 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

Odds and Ends: 787 ramp up, ISTAT, Airbus, the price of oil in 1968

787 Ramp-Up: UBS Securities issued a research note Monday in which it reports that the 787 rate ramp-up to 10 per month–a goal Boeing’s to be by the end of 2013–has slipped to the first quarter of 2014…. Read More

Republic’s Bryan Bedford emulates U-Turn Al

The CEO of Republic Airways Holdings seems to be vying to be America’s version of U-Turn Al, Akbar Al-Baker, the CEO of Qatar Airways. Bedford appears to be engaged in a campaign to raise questions about the Bombardier… Read More

Spirit, Airbus and Boeing: take-aways from analyst day

Spirit Aerosystems held an aerospace analyst day March 7 and several reports have already been issued. Given Spirit’s close association with Boeing 7-Series programs, we thought the following is useful information. Spirit is also a major supplier to… Read More

Odds and Ends: Airworthiness Directives and sloppy headline writing

Airworthiness Directives: The New York Times has a good piece about ADs that should put many general assignment reporters to shame. The rhubarb over the ADs applied to the Airbus A380 spurred Nicola Clark’s reporting. This is a… Read More

Odds and Ends: Boeing market share; Airbus to Mobile, 777X v A350 and more

Boeing to gain market share: Richard Aboulafia, aerospace analyst for The Teal Group, forecast at the annual conference last week of the Pacific Northwest Aerospace Alliance that Boeing will achieve a 56% market share in the coming years…. 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