Airbus A330-800 first flight

By Bjorn Fehrm November 6, 2018, © Leeham News in Toulouse. The Airbus A330-800, the smaller of the A330neo variants, took off for its first flight in Toulouse today. It’s the fourth member of the A330neo flight test… Read More

WOW-Icelandair combo may help Airbus, hurt Boeing in A321LR/XLR-NMA campaigns

Nov. 5, 2018, © Leeham News: The announcement that Icelandair will acquire competing low cost airline WOW Air seemed the inevitable conclusion to the financially-strapped WOW, which aggressively expanded against the entrenched incumbent. The combined carriers may help… Read More

Boeing can’t build 737s fast enough to meet demand

Subscription Required Introduction Nov. 5, 2018, © Leeham News: With a backlog of more than 4,700 737 MAXes and pressure to increase the production rate beyond 57/mo, an analysis of the backlog shows why Boeing has plenty of… Read More

Pontifications: Pilots train for instrumentation mismatches

Nov. 5, 2018, © Leeham News: It was a week ago that Lion Air JT 610 crashed into the sea, just 13 minutes after takeoff. The crash was the first involving the Boeing 737 MAX (in this case,… Read More

How useful is an NMA, Part 4

By Bjorn Fehrm Subscription Required Introduction November 1, 2018, © Leeham News.: Last week we looked at how a Boeing NMA would function as a medium range airliner in the Asia-Pacific. We now continue with flying the two… Read More

Airbus fights delivery challenges on several fronts

By Bjorn Fehrm October 31, 2018, ©. Leeham Co: Airbus announced 3Q 2018 results today. The company is wrestling with delivery problems for several of its aircraft programs. Its inventory of finished aircraft which can’t be delivered has increased… Read More

Airbus’ disadvantages in widebody campaigns

Subscription Required Introduction Oct. 29, 2018, © Leeham Co.: Airbus faces a key disadvantage when it comes to winning current wide-body campaigns against Boeing. The disadvantage is entirely out of its control. It’s not about whether the A330neo… Read More

Pontifications: Engines, engines, engines

Oct. 29, 2018, © Leeham Co.: Engines, engines, engines. News emerged last week that Rolls-Royce admitted its continuing problems with the Trent 1000 that powers the Boeing 787 now bled over to the Trent 7000. RR will fall… Read More

How useful is an NMA, Part 3

By Bjorn Fehrm Subscription Required Introduction October 25, 2018, © Leeham News.: Last week we looked at the trans-Atlantic capabilities for a Boeing NMA. We could see West Europe to  East US worked fine, but then it quickly… Read More

Boeing’s growing 777X challenge

Boeing 3Q earnings call Oct. 24, 10:30am EDT. Oct. 23, 2018, © Leeham News: Boeing has been confident it has bottomed out the production rate of the 777 line, successfully bridging between the Classic and the X models…. Read More