Odds and Ends: Airbus to lower A330 rate; Mitsubishi MRJ rollout Saturday; Delta retiring 747s; Enders slams German government; MC-21

MC-21 will claim 10% of world market: So Irkut claims. Here’s a 10 minute video.   Update, 7am PDT Oct. 17: Airbus announced it will lower production rates on the A330ceo from 10 to nine a month in… Read More

Odds and Ends: Tom Enders at Bernstein; JetBlue’s CEO; Al-Baker on Al Jazeera; Volcano photos

Tom Enders: Airbus Group CEO Tom Enders appeared recently at a Bernstein Research conference. A couple of highlights: The A350 program is on track for certification and first delivery on the schedule set two years ago.We have not… Read More

Odds and Ends: Airbus’ Enders; A320neo; Ex-Im Bank; Delta vs Alaska

Airbus’ Enders: Airbus Group CEO Tom Enders muses about what he will do when his current term ends in two years. He might seek another three year term as CEO or he could move on. In the Byzantine… Read More

Airbus to cut new airplane R&D, focus more on derivatives

Airbus is going to cut back its new airplane research and development spending and redirect efforts more toward derivative airplanes, EADS CEO Tom Enders told aerospace analysts at the EADS Global Investors Forum. Buried in a Bloomberg News… Read More

Dropping EADS for Airbus Group

The move to drop the acronym EADS for Airbus Group is being made out by some media to be a major step that better positions Airbus to compete with Boeing. This is a stretch. The name change simply… Read More

Odds and Ends: Airbus, Boeing trade barbs–again; Airbus raises order goals; first 787-10 commitment

More tit-for-tat: Airbus and Boeing are engaged again in their pointless trading of barbs. But it makes for entertaining reading. Here’s what Boeing had to say. The relevant excerpt is from the Bloomberg report: Airbus doesn’t “have an… Read More

Odds and Ends: Bombardier lands Delta’s RJ deal; 787 events in perspective; Airbus/China; Enders victory

Delta Air Lines: Bombardier, in a welcome development, landed a major order with Delta for 40+30 CRJ900s, beating out Embraer’s E-Jet proposal. Delta has a large, installed base of CRJs and EMB wasn’t too optimistic, in management-analysts meetings… Read More

Odds and Ends: Boeing responds to SPEEA; Enders’ mystery injury revealed; AirAsia

Boeing v SPEEA, con’t: As ballots are mailed by SPEEA to its members to vote on the Boeing contract offer, Boeing issued this response to SPEEA executive claims about the offer. Enders’ mystery injury: EADS CEO Tom Enders… Read More

Odds and Ends: Status of KC-46A; US Airways without AA; CSeries timeline

KC-46A: Aviation Week has this article on the current status of the Boeing KC-46A tanker and the management challenges. AvWeek also reports what we did earlier: the tanker gets nailed in sequestration. We have the specifications sheet here:… Read More

Airbus and Mobile: Implications and analysis

Before getting to the meat of things, a couple of key stories: Mobile Press-Register, June 30. Details of the plan. Wall Street Journal: Boeing complains. It’s now one of the worst-kept industrial secrets: Airbus will announce at 10am… Read More