Bombardier’s head of CSeries: The Toronto Globe and Mail has this interview with Rob Dewar, the head of the CSeries program. Separately, the last of the CAST safety tests has been completed.
Diverting from aerospace: CNN has this piece about sailing in the Antarctica, which is on our Bucket List.
It’s Friday, it’s been a long week: We just want to be irreverent.
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Here’s a take on ancillary revenues.
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Boeing’s 737 MAX, still weeks away from design configuration freeze and still with lots of detailed design to come, may share improvements still to come on the current 737 NG.
The head of the MAX program, Keith Leverkuhn, vice president and general manager, wouldn’t confirm or deny a report by Aspire Aviation that the MAX family will have 6-9 more seats through interior changes, the use of slim line seats and door changes when asked during Boeing’s MAX briefing yesterday with an international crowd of journalists.
Citing unidentified Boeing sources, Aspire reported:
Leverkuhn told the media that Boeing was satisfied with the current configuration of the airframe of the NG and MAX shares this configuration. Although Leverkuhn said Boeing had no intentions of changing, it still would talk with customers–leading to the obvious conclusion that Boeing wasn’t saying a firm “no” to the possibility.
We talked with him a few minutes alone later in which he clarified his earlier comments. Leverkuhn told us that while there will be no changes to the doors on the MAX which would allow more seats, the NG program is considering interior configurations that could lead to more seats and the MAX and NG programs closely follow developments and determine what can be shared between NG improvements still to come and the final MAX design.
Airbus in January announced a space-flex program that includes two new doors, enabling high density capacity to grow to 236 from 220. Airbus previously began offering a revised aft galley/lav combination in the A320 to permit three more seats, to 153 in two-classes. Boeing has been studying similar changes, according to our market intelligence.
Mike Mecham is a fixture in aviation journalism. He is retiring after 26 years with Aviation Week.
We’ve known Mike only for a few of these 26 years. He’s a cantankerous curmudgeon infamous for his monopolizing press events as if he was doing a one-on-one, totally oblivious to two dozen other journalists waiting their turn to question the subject, and having a jaundiced view of just about everything.
And that’s what made him so likeable in spite of himself.
At Boeing’s media dinner at the end of Day One of the pre-Paris Air Show briefing, Boeing’s Commercial Corp Com arose to wish him well, tell some stories and give him an airplane. True to form, Cranky Mikey remarked he hoped it wasn’t a 787 with batteries. (It was a 747-8 model.)
Mike was virtually joined at the hip with Guy Norris, another AvWeek journalist. No matter what the event, Guy and Mike appeared together. This constant companionship inevitably inspired ribald commentary. We have to believe Guy will go through withdrawal.
We asked Mike as we were boarding our respective buses off the Boeing property at the end of Day 2 what he planned to do in retirement. Mike plans to eschew aviation and commune with nature. We shudder to think how Mother Nature will greet this news; she and her creations will never be the same.
AirInsight has this 3 1/2 minute video with Mike, who gives his unvarnished views of the industry.
We wish Mike all the best.
In Boeing News:
Boeing showed us some technological advances in building the 777, another step in the Lean process begun in 2005. King 5 TV has this story: 777 wing painting. The Seattle Times also has a report.
We don’t have much to add to these two reports, so we’ll leave this topic here.
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 airframe that can compete” with the 777X, the upgraded version of Boeing’s biggest twin-engine plane, Chief Executive Officer Jim McNerney said at an investor conference today. “They don’t have the appetite to do a ground-up airplane, and they’d have to do a ground-up airplane.”
Considering the 777X itself is a derivative, we find McNerney’s comment kind of snarky. But he is right that Airbus doesn’t have a competing airplane to the 777-9X.
Here’s what Airbus had to say. The relevant except is also from Bloomberg: “The aircraft we rolled out a couple of weeks ago didn’t have rivets from Wal-Mart, like the ones our competitors had at the time off their roll-out,” Tom Enders, the chief executive officer of Airbus parent European Aeronautic, Defence & Space Co., told investors at the annual shareholders meeting today. “It’s a real aircraft.”
Airbus raises order goal: Here’s the story.
First 787-10 Commitment: As we’ve long reported, Singapore Airlines will be a launch customer for the 787-10.
We’re at Boeing today getting Paris Air Show briefings. The following is exempt from the embargo.
Elizabeth Lund, VP and GM (EL)
Jason Clark, Director 777 Operations (JC)
Lund:
Clark: Continue reading
Fixing the 787: Avionics magazine has a long article on fixing the Boeing 787 battery issues.
PW GTF: The Hartford Courant has a piece profiling the quiet nature of the Pratt & Whitney Geared Turbo Fan engine. While news articles talk about noise, this is pretty abstract for readers. Bombardier has the best, single source we’ve seen for noise illustrations, with several links within this site. Even that is somewhat abstract, so BBD has this link to compare noise with urban sounds.
ANA to retire 747s: They’ll be gone this year. JAL retired them in 2011. Good luck, Airbus, selling them the A380. ANA also returns the 787 to service Saturday.
787 Impact on Boeing: Over at AirInsight, we write that the 787 grounding in the end has a small impact on Boeing. Find out why here.
Following Pan Am into oblivion: The famed Worldport will be demolished next year. Another piece of history will be gone, but our friend Benet Wilson thinks the demise is a good idea.
Speaking of history, did you realize Aloha Air Lines is still around, as Aloha Air Cargo?
KC-46A production begins: The Puget Sound Business Journal reports that production on the Boeing KC-46A USAF tanker begins shortly.
Plane Talking’s Air Show Preview: Ben Sandilands’ Plane Talking takes his look at the Paris Air Show preview today. Our Paris Air Show Preview will be coming next week. Tomorrow and Thursday we’re at Boeing all day for PAS briefings, all except program updates on the 737 MAX and today’s 777 under embargo until June 14 and the 2013 Current Market Outlook under embargo until June 11.
We’re particularly looking forward to the MAX briefing in light of the information linked yesterday to Daniel Tsang’s huge Boeing piece in which he touched on some MAX features.
Meantime, our colleague Addison Schonland will be going to the Airbus PAS briefing next week. We’ll link and follow his reports over at AirInsight.
IAM and Boeing: We knew it was only a matter of time: the IAM is gearing up for a new representation drive at Boeing’s Charleston (SC) plant. Needless to say, Boeing takes a dim view.
A330 Sales: Centre for Asia-Pacific Aviation has this thought-piece on the durability of Airbus A330 sales even as the Boeing 787 recovers.
787 Delays: Richard Aboulafia has this article in Forbes (once you click past the annoying advertising page that first pops up) detailing his analysis of the impact of 787 delays on Boeing strategy. He says these delays have been a boost to Airbus and the A350-1000 (Loren Thompson would say it’s because of illegal subsidies to Airbus [we have to stop meeting like this]).
Making up ground: Aspire Aviation has a comprehensive report about how Boeing has to make up ground on all fronts.
Two video interviews popped up this morning with key leaders of airlines: Tim Clark, president of Emirates Airlines, and Richard Anderson, CEO of Delta Air Lines. Each is more than 25 minutes.
Emirates’ Tim Clark:
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Delta’s Richard Anderson via Bloomberg News is here.
As we go into this Memorial Day Weekend, we’re feeling a bit irreverent. So we’re going to meander a bit.
Who’s John Wayne? We were in a hardware store checking out. We often say, Thank you, Ma’am to women who are employed in any capacity in a retail store. The checker was a young lady (by our standards, alas). She responded, “That’s the first time I’ve been called ‘Ma’am.’”
John Wayne in The Shootist, his last movie. Wayne died in 1979.
Being a John Wayne fan, we said, in our best John Wayne drawl, “Well, how about ‘Missy, like John Wayne says?”
“Who’s John Wayne?”
Turns out Missy was born in 1996 (John Wayne died in 1979). Nonetheless, we didn’t know whether to be appalled that even this young-un didn’t know who John Wayne was…or to feel really, really old.
Paris Air Show: The countdown to the Paris Air Show continues and speculation remains rife whether the Airbus A350 will make an appearance. We think it will, with a fly-by. If it’s in flight testing, why not? Toulouse is less than an hour from Paris.
But let’s hope there isn’t any repeat of the A320 accident at an air show early into the A320 program, though that Air France-liveried airplane wasn’t flown by test pilots (they were the airline’s pilots).
It will be a contest for headlines, as always. Qatar Airways apparently will have Boeing put a 787 through some aerobatics, from what we hear. We also expect the launch of the 787-10 and some commitments for the 777X. We’re sure Airbus will have the A380 aerobatics, the A350 and a race for orders to match or out-do Boeing.
And both sides will take shots at the other. Ho hum.
Restoring the Dornier 17: This is a light German bomber used over England in World War II. The British are working to recover one from 50 ft of water and to restore it. Here’s the BBC report.
Dornier 17 light German bomber used in World War II.
