Assessing the Air Canada 737 order: factors that likely played a role

How did Boeing win the Air Canada mainline 150-200 seat jet order when only a couple of weeks ago Flight Global reported the Airbus won the deal? We, too, heard that Airbus seemed to be the favorite, but… Read More

CFM LEAP accelerating in test program; Airbus and the A350-800

Aviation Week has a long, detailed story about the test program for the CFM LEAP engine, which is accelerating rapidly. In its 737 MAX program update yesterday, Boeing said the LEAP-1B has begun testing and it will benefit… Read More

CSeries first flight may be Sunday, says Reuters

The thrice-delayed first flight of the Bombardier CSeries may come Sunday, reports Reuters. We previously posted some thoughts on the pending first flight. We expanded on these thoughts in our e-mail newsletter Aug. 26. Below is the entire… Read More

Sizing up engine market share on the A320 family

While competition between Airbus and Boeing snares nearly all the headlines and all the “sex,” competition for engine orders is less sexy and receives less attention. Part of this is because of the increasing trend toward sole-sourcing. The… Read More

Looking ahead to 2013 in Commercial Aviation

Last year yielded a few surprises in an otherwise predictable year. Jim Albaugh shocked the aviation world when he retired unexpectedly at age 62. He was expected to remain in his position as CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes… Read More

Odds and Ends: Boeing stock buyback; Charging suppliers for doing business; AA+US

Boeing Stock Buyback: Boeing announced a stock buyback of #3.6bn for next year. Wells Fargo has this to say in a research note issued today: Boeing had more than $11B of cash on the balance sheet at the… Read More

Random thoughts about Airbus, Boeing and related issues

We’ve been traveling on business all week and naturally the conversation was all aviation. We spoke with lessors, aerospace analysts, hedge funds and private equity. In what amounts to a data dump, here is what is being discussed… Read More

Boeing wants to outsource more work to Mexico; updated MAX v NEO orders

Boeing outsourcing: In an election where outsourcing is a major political campaign issue, The Seattle Times reports Boeing wants to outsource more work to Mexico. Here is Boeing’s letter, via The Times. MAX v NEO: Here is an… Read More

ISTAT Europe: a tough review by Aeroturbopower, and our thoughts

ISTAT Europe: Aeroturbopower has this recap of last week’s ISTAT Europe conference and he takes a devastating hit at the Boeing presentation. We weren’t at the event this year but we’ve seen plenty of Boeing presentations and agree… Read More

Odds and Ends: Designing 737 MAX; RR & PW; CFM

737 MAX: Boeing Frontiers Magazine has a long article with lots of pictures describing the designing process of the Advanced Technology Winglets. RR-PW on big engines: Aviation Week has this article speculating on the prospect of Rolls-Royce and… Read More