Bombardier’s CS100 media flight demonstrates quiet

July 10, 2016, (c) Leeham Co.: Our coverage of the Farnborough Air Show (#FIA16 on Twitter) begins today, with a media flight on the Bombardier CS100. The day was rainy and somewhat turbulent until the flight got above… Read More

Pontifications: Airbus CXLs A320, A350 August vacations

June 20, 2016, © Leeham Co.: Airbus officials canceled the annual August vacations in Europe for the A320 and A350 production lines. The A320neo and A350-900 are backing up on the delivery lines because of supplier issues with the… Read More

Mid-Market airplane comes before A320, 737 replacement: Pratt & Whitney exec

Subscription Required Introduction June 16, 2016, © Leeham Co.: A middle of the market airplane will come before a replacement for the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737, predicts Alan Epstein, vice Alan Epstein, VP technology and environment, Pratt… Read More

Pontifications: GTF faces steep learning curve on costs

June 13, 2016, © Leeham Co.: The current cost to build the new Pratt & Whitney Geared Turbo Fan engine is $10m per engine. This has to come down by a factor of five, said Greg Hayes, the… Read More

Irkut MC-21 rolls out

June 9, 2016: Irkut rolled out its challenger to the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737-800/8 yesterday the MC-21-300. The new airplane is powered by either the Pratt & Whitney GTF or a Russian engine. A report from a… Read More

Airbus aircraft programs in review

By Bjorn Fehrm in Hamburg Introduction May 31, 2016, ©. Leeham Co: Airbus went through a complete review of all their aircraft programs as part of their yearly briefing for media in Hamburg today. A lot was said… Read More

E190-E2’s first flight

May 24, 2016: Embraer’s E190-E2 had its first flight yesterday, several months ahead of the internal schedule (original plan was September) making it the only new airplane program in recent history to be significantly ahead. Boeing’s 737 MAX… Read More

Pontifications: Earnings week for Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier and Embraer

April 25, 2016, © Leeham Co.: Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier and Embraer having their first quarter earnings call this week. Bombardier also has its Annual General Meeting concurrent with its 1Q earnings on Friday. The big anticipation will be… Read More

Alcoa lowers guidance, cites slowing jet sales, production ramp up

April 13, 2016, © Leeham Co.: Alcoa, a major supplier to Airbus and Boeing, lowered its 2016 guidance on anticipated lower demand for aluminum on lower orders for legacy commercial airliners and a slower than expected transition to… Read More

Virgin America does have some attractive attributes

March 29, 2016, © Leeham Co.: A report that JetBlue and Alaska Airlines submitted bids to buy Virgin America spurs the thought: this isn’t as wacky as it appears on the surface. When news emerged last week that… Read More