EADS profits on increased production

EADS, parent of Airbus, reported a stronger-than-expected profit on higher production at its principal subsidiary. The details may be found in this AP story. A couple of take-aways: This better performance, despite the worries over the dollar-Euro exchange… Read More

Jumping the gun, perhaps?

Northrop Grumman announced the grounding breaking for its KC-45A tanker even though the Government Accountability Office hasn’t rendered its decision on the Boeing protest of the tanker contract award by the USAF to Northrop. This strikes us as… Read More

Checking jobs at Northrop? Check Boeing, too

US Sens. Patty Murray (D-Boeing) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA) have asked the White House to investigate the claim by Northrop Grumman that 48,000 direct and indirect jobs will be created with the KC-30 program. The KC-30 will be… Read More

ILFC 787s face 27+ month delay for all 74 orders

Leasing giant International Lease Finance Corp. revealed today in a federal filing that its entire order of Boeing 787s will be delayed “an average in excess of 27 months per aircraft and span across ILFC’s entire order.” The… Read More

Dueling tanker press releases

In a rare confluence of timing, Boeing and Northrop Grumman issued press releases on the same topic at about the same time. Here they are, in their entirety; our commentary follows after the Northrop release: Boeing KC-767 Tanker:… Read More

Leeham website updated wk/May 6

Our Corporate website has been updated with commentary and links to news articles. This week we put some perspective into the recent stories about potentially new A380 delays and the reports of new delays for the Boeing 787…. Read More

More delays for 787, A380: German magazine

Reuters picked up a report from a German magazine saying Boeing and Airbus are notifying customers of new delays in the 787 and A380 programs. Here’s the report; we’ll try for comment ourselves. New, 1045 AM PDT: Reuters… Read More

30 month delay on 787?

Flight International reports that Royal Jordanian Airlines believes its order for Boeing 787s could be as much as 2 1/2 years late. Monarch Airlines is also reported to be thinking its 787 orders could be 30 months late,… Read More

More A380 delays or not

In a confusing set of stories, reports suggest that there may be a new round of delivery delays for the Airbus A380. These generated from comments made by Airbus CEO Thomas Enders, who said Airbus is engaged in… Read More

To fuel or not to fuel

Here are a couple of items about the refueling capability of the KC-30/KC-330 tanker, which is one point of controversy in the continuing saga of the Boeing-Northrop Grumman tanker contract award. Boeing likes to point out that Northrop’s… Read More