After-market support becoming key to winning engine orders

Maintenance and power-by-the-hour parts and support contracts are increasingly becoming the deciding factor in deciding which engines and which airplanes will be ordered—it’s no longer a matter of engine price or even operating costs, customers of Airbus and… Read More

Bombardier woes go beyond CSeries

The news last week that Bombardier reorganized its business units, laid off another 1,800 employees and saw the retirement of Guy Hachey, president and CEO of the aerospace division, was viewed by some media and observers as an… Read More

Farnborough Air Show, July 17: Orders summary, reflections of the show

Orders continued to trickle in as the Farnborough Air Show winds down (there could be others not listed here). Airbus: Transaero, LOI for 12 A330neos and eight A330ceos; Hong Kong Aviation Capital firms up an order for 40… Read More

Farnborough Air Show, July 16: MRJ program analysis

After a long drought of orders or even LOIs and MOUs, the Mitsubishi MRJ program saw some life at this Farnborough Air Show. Sales of Japan’s first commercial airplane since the propeller-era’s YS-11 stalled with orders from SkyWest… Read More

Farnborough Air Show, July 15: Orders summary

Here are the orders and commitments announced today that we saw–there could be others we haven’t seen: Airbus: Avolon (a lessor) ordered 15 A330neos; CIT Aerospace, MOU for 16 A330-900s, five A321neos; SMBC Aviation (lessor), 110 A320neo and… Read More

Farnborough Air Show, July 15: WA State and Mitsubishi; PW GTF issue revealed, finally;

The news that Mitsubishi will stage flight testing for its new MRJ 90-seat jet program at Moses Lake (WA) is, parochially, good news. And it is exactly the type of non-industrial aerospace business that we’ve been advocating for… Read More

Farnborough Air Show, July 14: Orders Summary

Here are orders that were announced on the first official day of the Farnborough Air Show (at least the ones we’ve seen from Seattle–feel free to add to the list if we’ve missed any): Airbus: from Air Lease… Read More

Farnborough Air Show preview

The Farnborough Air Show is just around the corner, and we don’t expect the event to be especially newsworthy. Here are our expectations for the show: Airbus Market expectations are that Airbus will launch the A330neo at the… Read More

CSeries setback as PW GTF has reported uncontained failure

Exclusive interview with Robert Saia, vice president of the Next Generation Product Family at Pratt & Whitney. PW believes it has a “good understanding” of what happened. Flight testing might resume quickly, reducing risk of program delay. Customers… Read More

CSeries FTV 4 to launch this month with PW GTF testing focus

Bombardier’s CSeries flight testing has now passed the 250 hour flight mark, with three Fight Test Vehicles (FTVs) in the program. FTV 4 is due to become airborne in May. This will be a milestone for the program… Read More