Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Leeham News and Analysis
- RTX Q1 2025 Earnings: GTF Talk Takes A Back Seat To Tariffs April 22, 2025
- Tariffs Tumult Takes Over GE Aerospace Q1 2025 Earnings Call April 22, 2025
- Boeing reports mixed results of latest employee survey, but middle management and officers remain key obstacles April 22, 2025
- Hopes for 1Q financial progress turns into bumpy ride for Boeing April 21, 2025
- Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 18. April 18, 2025
Buying Russian for US lift
We have, from time-to-time, joked that the USAF ought to buy a Russian aerial tanker as a way to avoid the Boeing-EADS-Northrop-Airbus rhubarb in the long-running KC-X saga. Well, here’s news that the US Navy is planning to… Read More
Tanker award to slip to 2011?
Update, Aug. 6: Here is a Pentagon spokesman reacting to the US Aerospace protest over being rejected for its KC-X bid because it missed the filing deadline by five minutes, as reported by The Dayton Business Journal: In… Read More
Tanker face off at Farnborough
Boeing and EADS held tanker briefings this week–Monday for Boeing, Tuesday for EADS. Boeing offered up top program officials while EADS offered up two American crewmen from its test flight program, a pilot and a boom operator. Boeing’s… Read More
French union understands “Buy American” on tanker
Update, July 19: Airbus says CGT is fourth Union out of five for Airbus in France, representing about 10 percent of Airbus employees in France. Update, July 16: We received this from CGT: the union severed ties in 1978.Christian and… Read More
Questioning the effect of the WTO
We’re not the only ones questioning the effect of the recent WTO ruling against Airbus and its illegal subsidies. A respected business writer from The Seattle Times has weighed in with this opinion piece. We’ve long been cynical… Read More
Boeing offers KC-767 to USAF
It’s now official: Boeing submitted a bid for the KC-X competition, offering the KC-767 NewGen tanker. Boeing did not schedule a press conference, so the initial press release detailing its bid is below the jump, with our reporting… Read More
EADS submits tanker bid; Boeing to follow
Update, 2:30 PM: Here are three PDF slides of information from the press conference, comparing the KC-45 with the KC-767 NewGen: KC-45 slides 7-08-10. Boeing does not plan a press conference with its tanker submission tomorrow-just a press… Read More
EADS statement on WTO affect on KC-X competition
From Guy Hicks, VP of corporate communications at EADS North America: “The Obama Administration and Department of Defense have opposed every attempt to use the ongoing WTO commercial trade dispute to derail the KC-X competition. The only beneficiary… Read More
“More has been costing more”
With the Pentagon’s announcement this week that a major push has begun to wring costs out of the defense budget, will this macro approach trickle down to one of the largest defense procurements in decades–the KC-X tanker recapitalization?… Read More