Pre Paris Air Show tidbits

The Air Show is only three days away now and we have the first flight of the A350. So, no wonder that we see a lot of news stories coming out. Here are some of them:

1. Enders expects orders for "hundreds" of Airbus aicraft: As I wrote earlier I always thought that John Leahy and Tom Enders were overly pessimistic with their forecast of "only" 700 orders, later expecting 700-750 orders, later upping that number to more than 800. At the end of May there were 517 net and 493 net orders. Add 102 orders for Lufthansa (30 A320ceo, 70 A320neo and 2 A380), then add Air France for 25 A350-900, add 100 A320 for Air China and Shenzen, another 18 A330 and 42 A320 for CASC and you already have 804 net orders - all these orders are announced. Then add the "hundreds" we will see next week and Airbus will easily have more than 1,000 net orders for the year with the Dubai Air Show still to come...

2. Airbus is now (again) the front runner at easyjet. We will see how that campaign ends up. I guess it is not over yet and I do not expect the deal to be finished during the Paris Air Show. Profit margins for the winning manufacturers (aircraft and engines) will probably be dismal.

3. Not unexpected: Boeing will launch the B787-10 at PAS13. This was in the "rumour mill" for a long time now. Boeing will kick-start the B787-10 with a bunch of orders from Singapore Airlines (which already came forward), United, ALC and British Airways. I could imagine one or two other "surprise" customers.

4. Rany Tinseth thinks that this will be the Show of the Widebodies. Hmm, read that somewhere before I think. He should definitely be right about that!

Embraer EJets G2 launch at Paris Air Show

Embraer will host a press conference regarding commercial aviation during the Paris Air Show next week on Monday (see the press release here). My strong guess is that this is where we will see the official launch of the EJet G2 Series.

And I guess Embraer will not only announce the official go-ahead but also will announce one or more first customers for the three-member strong family.

A320neo engine orders at Paris Air Show

The ever-entertaining story about market share on the A320neo family goes into another round at the Paris Air Show. Two years ago CFM hit back hard at P&W during the Air Show. P&W had won the first round of orders back then with ILFC first committing to the PW1100G for 60 of their 100 aircraft strong A320neo order. Also Indigo choose the Geared Turbo Fan as well as Lufthansa.

Then CFM came back after redesigning the LEAP-1A with another (7th) stage of low pressure turbine and a slightly larger fan (78" instead of 75") to gain SFC. CFM then won SAS, Republic, Air Asia, GECAS (no surprise here), the remaining 40 aircraft from ILFC and Virgin America and was in a comfortable lead. During the last two years each of the two manufacturers won a deal here and there and the CFM consortium is still ahead with about 53% of the engine orders. So let's take a look at the A320neo orders which do not have an (announced) engine decision yet and how the picture could change after the Paris Air Show.