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

Farnborough, Day 1: Orders, Price Calculator and other stuff

McNerney rejects “price war.” A quote from a Financial Times story (see below). He rejected suggestions that a price war had broken out between Airbus and Boeing over the A320 Neo and 737 Max but confirmed the US… Read More

Farnborough: CFM, PW engage in hand-to-hand combat

We’re all used to Airbus and Boeing engaging in hand-to-hand combat. The war has now spilled over to CFM and Pratt & Whitney and the LEAP engine vs the GTF. There have always been some sharp words. But… Read More

Odds and Ends: ‘We’re happy with LEAP, confident it will meet target’

During the Boeing 1Q2012 earnings call, CEO Jim McNerney had this to say about the story that won’t die (that Boeing continues to look at the PW Geared Turbo Fan for the 737 MAX): The gear turbo fan,… Read More

Republic’s Bryan Bedford emulates U-Turn Al

The CEO of Republic Airways Holdings seems to be vying to be America’s version of U-Turn Al, Akbar Al-Baker, the CEO of Qatar Airways. Bedford appears to be engaged in a campaign to raise questions about the Bombardier… Read More

PW GTF-CFM LEAP market share

AirInsight has an interesting analysis of the market share of the GTF vs the LEAP on the A320neo family. This was completed while the Singapore Air Show was underway and orders still being announced. The analysis only covers… Read More

Norwegian Air splits order with Airbus, Boeing

In a surprise, Norwegian Air Shuttle split a large order between Airbus and Boeing for A320 and 737 families. The Airbus order is only for the NEO and 737 order is a mix of MAX and NGs. We… Read More