The turbo-prop conundrum: small market, high costs

ATR Turbo-prop. Photo via Google images. Subscription Required Introduction ATR and Bombardier are incumbents. China has a home-market offering. Indonesia and India want to create a product. It’s the 60-seat and up turbo-prop market. It’s too many companies… Read More

Pontifications: “I’m glad you’re not going far.”

Nov. 23, 2015, (c) Leeham Co. An Airbus A321 is blown out of the sky over Egypt. Two Air France jumbo jets are diverted due to bomb threats. ISIS stages multiple, simultaneous attacks in Paris. Additional attacks are… Read More

Bjorn’s Corner: Production rates

20 November 2015, ©. Leeham Co: Emirates Airline CEO, Tim Clark, is quoted as having said “it takes them forever to get this thing up.” He was talking about the Airbus A350 production rate and his reasons for… Read More

Europe’s airlines: LCC, the winning formula

By Bjorn Fehrm Nov. 18 2015, ©. Leeham Co: Easyjet revealed record numbers yesterday with pretax profits now at 14.6% of a year turnover of £4,686m. The load-factors for their aircraft are at a record 91.5% on a 12… Read More

Embraer sees broadening market in North America

Subscription Required Introduction Nov. 17, 2015, © Leeham Co. The chief commercial officer of Embraer sees US mainline carriers adding John Slattery, Chief Commercial Officer, Embraer. Photo via Google images. aircraft in the 100-plus seat sector that will… Read More

Emirates’ 615 seat A380, is it more economical?

By Bjorn Fehrm Subscription required. Introduction Nov. 11, 2015, ©. Leeham Co: Emirates Airline showed off its newly delivered two class A380 at this week’s Dubai Air Show. With a record 615 seats, this is the densest A380 that… Read More

Emirates’ mid-range choice

By Bjorn Fehrm Nov. 10 2015, ©. Leeham Co: The Dubai Air Show is on its second day and there are no mega orders. The one that should have been, the mid-range requirement for Emirates Airline, has been postponed,… Read More

Pontifications: A380neo? Try A380TXWB. Dubai Air Show and other Odds and Ends

Nov. 9, 2015, (c) Leeham Co. Airbus last week launched its A380 flying test bed with the A350-1000’s Rolls-Royce Trent XWB 97,000 lb engine placed in the number two position. The first thing that came to mind when… Read More

Bjorn’s Corner: Aircraft systems, the real nuts to crack

06 November 2015, ©. Leeham Co: COMAC’s C919 was rolled out in the week. We got to see a new shiny aircraft which looked ready to fly. The nicely curved fuselage and wings were immaculate, the paint was… Read More

No fear of C919 for a generation

Nov. 4, 2015, © Leeham Co. The first COMAC C919 was rolled out of the factory over the weekend, China’s mainline entry into the fiercely competitive arena now “owned” by the Airbus-Boeing duopoly. Although the two giants each has… Read More