Odds and Ends: Slowing sales; Airbus in Japan; MRJ delay; Crandall on merger

Slowing Jet Sales: Within a few days, Bloomberg, Reuters and The Seattle Times each had stories about slowing jet sales. Here is the Bloomberg story, focusing on cargo sales. Here is the Reuters story. Here is The Seattle… Read More

Busy news Friday: BBD gets CSeries first flight clearance, AA-US get early DOJ court date

It’s an unusually busy news day for a Friday. Bombardier received its clearance from Transport Canada to conduct the first flight of the CSeries. BBD has not announced a date, which will be contingent upon weather and the… Read More

Odds and Ends: Why new planes are delayed; Hazy profile; first 787-9

It’s Actually is Rocket Science: It’s a clever headline from Bloomberg News, explaining why new airplane programs are delayed. Focusing on smaller airplanes: Steven Udvar-Hazy, one of the craftiest executives in commercial aviation, is profiled in this LA… Read More

Replacing the 747-400

Replacing the venerable Boeing 747-400s remaining in passenger service is a prime objective of Boeing and of Airbus. The business case for their respective 747-8Is and A380s rests in large part on this approach, though for Airbus the… Read More

Odds and Ends: New upgrades for the B-52; MRJ delay confirmed; EIS estimates for new airplane programs

Upgrades for the B-52: The USAF and Boeing are upgrading the Boeing B-52 bomber to further extend the service life. The LA Times via the Seattle Times has this story. This is remarkable; the B-52 was designed in… Read More

Odds and Ends: Plane Business analysis of AA-US merger; Air Canada’s single-aisle competition

AA-US Merger: Plane Business made available Aug. 21 its previous analysis of the proposed American Airlines-US Airways merger outside its paywall. The analysis of the government’s analysis is pretty devastating to the government’s case. Read it and judge… Read More

Odds and Ends: Lorenzo weighs in support AA-US merger; lawsuit could delay AA RJ replacement; 93% airport concentration

Lorenzo supports AA-US merger: In a radio interview with Bloomberg news, Frank Lorenzo supports mergers in the US airline industry and the proposed one between American Airlines and US Airways. Lorenzo is the former CEO of Texas Air… Read More

DOJ lawsuit vs AA-US reads like political document

Note: Some articles of interest: Robert Crandall, former CEO of American, has this op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal (via Google News, so it should be accessible to Readers). With the concentration of airline service that the… Read More

DOJ “a day late and a dollar short” on merger concerns

The US Department of Justice’s lawsuit to block the merger of American Airlines and US Airways displays a concern that comes a little late. As far back as the Reagan Administration, DOJ had ample opportunity to take aggressive… Read More

Odds and Ends: Evolution of the airline logo; Boeing 20 year forecast updated

Airline Logos: Mary Kirby posted this one. A bit off our usual beaten path, but we find this quite interesting. Speaking of airline logos: We just completed a series of flights on US Airways and asked in-flight and… Read More