CFM A321neo noise levels revised

Yesterday the EASA published new noise levels for the A321neo, which now include the "right" noise levels for the A321-251N and A321-253N, fitted with the CFM LEAP-1A engines. As for the A320neo, the A321neo with the LEAP-1A is a little bit better (read_less noisy) than the PW1100G. This is surprising, as P&W always claimed that the GTF concept has, beside better fuel burn, it's merits in extreme low noise because of the slower spinning fan and the better damping of the low pressure turbine noise due to better atmospheric dampening.
I would be interested to hear how P&W and CFM explain the difference...

A320neo and A321neo noise levels

Yesterday the A321neo with the CFM LEAP-1A32 engine was certified by both the EASA and the FAA. The EASA certification document for the aircraft family can be accessed here, the noise certification document is here. The FAA documentation is not online yet.

What strikes me is the high noise level of the A321-251N. The LEAP-powered A321neo is not really less noisy than the CFM56 powered A321ceo, which itself was considerably louder than the V2500 powered A321ceo.

If you compare the highest MTOW version (93.5t) you get a cumulated noise level of 281.7dB for the A321-251N, the A321ceo with the  CFM56-5B4/3 is certified with a noise level of 280.1dB (there are also versions of the CFM56 which have higher noise levels than the LEAP1A though.

The PW1133G in comparison has a cumulated noise level of 268.5dB, more than 13dB less than the LEAP-1A32. Both at the lateral and flyover noise points the GTF is less noisy by about 6dB, the approach noise, where the aircraft itself is the main source, is almost the same for both versions.

I wonder if the values for the LEAP-1A32 are real – or somebody at EASA put some wrong numbers in the document.

The noise values for the A320neo are telling a complete different picture: here, the LEAP powered A320-251N is better than the PW1127G powered A320-271N by 1dB, mainly through lower levels at the lateral noise point.


I wait for some good explanations...

A321ceo vs. B737-900ER deliveries

After yesterdays order from Jetblue for 30 more A321 (15 x A32ceo and 15 x A321neo with the right to convert to the A321LR), the order from Air Asia for 100 A321neo's and the conversion from Norwegian, now taking 30 A321LR, I looked into the delivery breakdown of Airbus und Boeing's narrowbodies.
Airbus delivered 40% of their narrowbodies as the A321this year so far - Boeing delivered less than 10% of all their B737NG's as the B737-900ER version.
The jury is still out if the pressure for Boeing is big enough to be forced to launch a B737MAX-10 or a clean-sheet MoM aircraft. GE Aviation CEO still has problems with the business case, as one could read in one of the latest editions of Flightglobal (sorry, I have no link, saw it on hardcopy only).
Boeing said they still have time to decide what to do...

No MOM!

You read it here first: there will (in all likelihood) be no so-called MoM.
After my last post a few articles underline what I wrote. Richard Aboulafia wrote  a commentary in the Aviation Week and Scott Hamilton just posted a story about notes from Buckingham Research, Bernstein Research and Goldman Sachs regarding Boeing and the MoM aircraft.
Goldman Sachs still thinks Boeing could develop MoM, but concludes that Boeing is in a lose-lose Situation here.
Bernstein thinks that MoM could be the "Mirage of the Market" rather than the "Middle of the Market".
Buckingham concluded that the market is not big enough to justify the development.

B757 successor discussion - again!

Again, there is an interesting story about the much-talked-about B757 successor in the press. Now, as I wrote earlier I do not see a business case for that aircraft. As Addison Schonland from airinsight pointed out here, just about 50 B757 are currently flying routes the A321neo and B737MAX-9 will not be able to serve.

So what could be behind the story? I see two possible scenarios:

1.    Absolutely nothing! Maybe Mr. Foster, President of Air Astana, just wants to test the waters and hopes that other airline CEO’s and influential people join the discussion, raising the pressure for Boeing – and for Airbus, which would have to react once Boeing would announce to do something.

2.    Boeing sees that the B737MAX-9 is inferior to the A321neo and uses Mr. Foster to tell airlines around the world not to buy anymore A321neo as a better aircraft could be “just around the corner”.

I think it is more likely that it it something like scenario 1. Investing billions of dollars in such a small niche and, as Air Astana’s CEO suggested, to announce the development now with an EIS that could not be before the middle of the next decade (see Scott Hamiltons comments here) just would not make sense. Sales for the B737MAX-9 would probably suffer more than for the A321neo, as Boeing’s customer base will be more willing to wait as the customer base of Airbus, which is easier for Airbus to keep in their camp.

Also, as Scott pointed out, it would be a family of aircraft, replacing the B737MAX-8, -9 and the B757-200 (for sure not the B737MAX-7). With the 2000+ sales of the B737MAX one can calculate that the production horizon reaches until almost 2023 now. So why prevent further sales of the B737MAX now by announcing a successor too soon? It just won’t happen! Not now!

No clean sheet B757 / B767 succussor!

I refer to the story in herald.net reporting from the Boeing Investor Day on May, 21^st 2014. Reading the article we must come to the conclusion that a clean sheet design B757/767 successor will not happen for some time.

After the financial B787 debacle, which is now between $23 and $25 billion in the reds and with a costly B777X program ahead nobody in the Boeing upper management will have the will to try to sell another technical and financial adventure to the shareholders.

One could say that Boeing now has all the learning about how to develop and produce a fiber carbon aircraft and the development of the B777X wing would give further experience and would lower the risk. But this aircraft – a B757/767 successor – would have different competitors, coming partly from Boeing itself. The B737MAX-9 and the A321neo from the lower side, the B787-8 and a A330neo from the upper side. Of course, the B737MAX-9 and the A321neo would not be able to do the critical B757 missions and the A330neo and the B787-8 are optimized for longer ranges and thus would not offer optimized costs for, say, a 4000nm mission. But this market segment alone, which can not be served by the B737MAX-9 and the A321neo, would be too small  to present a business case with another $10-$15 billion investment upfront.

Sales prices would also be a problem with a A330neo, which, with a 2018 EIS by 2025 could have written down development costs and could be given to customers for prices we see today for the baseline A330 (escalated by inflation, of course).

Boeing yesterday made clear (as Airbus did before) that future aircraft will (for the foreseeable future) only see incremental developments rather than revolutionary designs. The plans from Airbus for an electric regional aircraft might be the only exception, but we have to wait another few years to see if this concept will really become reality.

Is there a demand for a B757/B767 successor? Yes, of course! Will Boeing sell one aircraft less if they (and Airbus) don’t do it? No! And this is what counts for the shareholder. Period!

The B757 successor discussion

Yesterday MTU’s COO Rainer Martens revealed during the annual results presentation that there is a plan to upgrade the PW1100G engine for the A320neo with another 3% SFC jump by 2019. On a side note, as the turbo machinery of the PW1100G and the PW1400G are identical,  the MS-21 will also benefit from that as I think that P&W and their partners will not start building  two different engines.

But what does that mean in a broader context?

Firstly, we can be very sure that a similar PIP (Performance Improvement Package) will also be worked out for the LEAP-1A (and the LEAP-1C destined for the COMAC C919, as this engine has the same turbo machinery as well). Another report on a german website cites MTU’s Martens that the 3% improvement are agreed with Airbus so we expect that there is a corresponding  agreement between Airbus and CFM to lower SFC around 2019/20. As the GE9X goes into service by that time frame we can expect a lot of technology transfer from the GE9X to the LEAP-1A – and subsequently to the LEAP-1B for the B737MAX.

Secondly, this makes the business case for any A320neo and B737MAX successor harder. This is why I do not believe in a B757 successor in the time frame that was discussed by Scott Hamilton and others lately. At least not in the sense of a purpose build aircraft. Here is why:

·         The 3% lower SFC for the A321neo (and probably sooner or later also for the B737MAX-9) leads to 100+nm more range, bringing these two aircraft even closer to the capabilities of the B757 today.

·         As of today the A321ceo can do about 95% of all routes flown by the B757 today. And the A321neo can only NOT do five city pairs flown by the B757 today (I go that verbally from Airbus). 

Add the 100 extra miles coming out of the engine improvement and what is left? Maybe three routes, maybe four routes, maybe still all five. Add some improvements to the airframe and what is left then…?

I am  sure there is no business case left then for building a standalone aircraft with the capabilities of the B757. But also as part of a new family of narrowbodies, aka the A30X and the B797, there is no real need to compromise the efficiency of the whole family with a wing that is large enough to cover distances more than what the A320neo/B737MAX families will do. Otherwise Airbus and Boeing could lose market share against a Bombardier CS500 and a forthcoming Embraer small narrowbody  which are designed for ranges less than 3000nm.

But I do not see these new breeds coming a of 2025 as James N. Krebs postulated in this very interesting guest column at Leeham News. But if we see a further 3% improvement from the engines at the end of the decade, how should there be another jump of 20% in fuel burn in 2025? The technology for an aircraft with an EIS must be defined by 2018/19. With a regular tube-and-wing aircraft I cannot see a jump more than 10% from the airframe - if designed for the same range (more range: less efficiency gain for shorter routes). If we take 1% efficiency gain for every year from improved engine design (and that seems optimistic as it gets harder and harder), we get a maximum of 15% versus neo/MAX. Not taken into account that there can still be something done to the existing aircraft as well like building the fuselage from AlLi or enhancing the wing. The business case for an all new aircraft then disappears in my eyes. But I am not a bean counter…err… accountant.

Another question is if someone will do something in the sector left by the likes of the A300-600R and the B767-300(non ER): 250-300 seats, 4000nm max range. Being hinted to think about that, as can be read in the Pudget Sound article. I do not count that as a B757 successor and  I do not know if there is a business case for that but Lufthansa always cried for “people mover” like that.

Surprising engine choice

Last week Aviation Week came out with a story that Philippine Airlines opted for the V2500 and PW1100G for their ordered A321ceo/neo fleet and chose the Trent700 for their new A330-300 fleet.
As of today the whole PAL fleet is powered by either CFM or GE engines this would be a surprise if true - but also shows that PW gained market power through the buy of the RR share in the IAE consortium.
Looking at the A321 in particular though, the choice of the V2500 is not that surprising. From here I pulled all A320 deliveries from this year through August 31: about 84% of all delivered A321 have the V2500. In contrast, about 60% of the A319 and A320 were delivered with the CFM56. As the A320 counts for roughly 76.5% of all A320 family deliveries and the A319 for 7.5%, the CFM56 has the lead with 53.2% market share over the V2500. This is slightly down from 2011, when the CFM56 had a share of 56% for the whole year. In 2009 I found that the market share of the CFM56 was 61%. So with the shift to larger narrowbodies, like I described earlier, the market share in the narrowbody engine segment also changes.

Payload Range Diagram

After my last post a debate started about the range of the B737MAX-8 and -9, precisely whether these ranges can only be achieved with an additional fuel tank. It seems like (and Scott Hamilton pointed us to that) that Boeing already said that the MAX-9 range of 3595nm is reached with an additional fuel tank. Boeing did not say anything about the MAX-8 fuel tank configuration to reach 3640nm of range, but it seems logical that this will also be only achievable with the additional fuel tank.
A further hint to that is the difference between the different OEW and MTOW gains, relative to the NG.

Boeing creating a new market?

Air Transport World today reports that Buckingham Research expects Boeing to forego reengining the 737NG, a move still anticipated by a "meaningful number of investors" in the case that a Boeing customer would defect to Airbus.
But Buckingham noted that Boeing might be so capacity constrained in terms of orders that it might not have the possibility to reengine.
Instead of reengining Boeing would move to an all new aircraft, probably a new light twin-aisle. As I laid out before, such an aircraft would not make sense starting in the current lower capacity end of the 737, so I would guess (if true) that this aircraft would start where the 737-800 is today. The upper end then could be where the  757-300 is, just below the 787-8. That would then fill a niche, because today there are no new aircraft build in this segment - well, one could consider the Tu-204, but this aircraft is almost dead and even not competitive with the 757.
Buckingham says that Boeing would continue to improve the 737NG and is internally convinced that the 2016 737NG is competitive with the A320neo. Boeing earlier stated that the 737NG line could be open until 2026.
A move described by Buckingham would be both smart and risky:

• Risky as it is not clear if customers really will think that a more than 40 year old design will be competitive. Until then the CSeries is in the market, a similar Embraer aircraft could be on the way to the market, making the 737-700 obsolete - the backlog of the -700 is shrinking anyway (as well as the A319). The cabin diameter will still be the 737's problem, as people tend to get larger - vertically, but even worse: horizontally.
• Smart as it opens a new market field for Boeing and by that getting out of the competition with Bombardier, Embraer, the Chinese, the Russians and, to some extent, Airbus. Although for now it remains unclear if the new aircraft will have transcontinental or transatlantic range, the aircraft could be (with the right level of technology) better than the A321neo even if it is designed for more range to enable all 757 missions flown today.

But is there a huge market for these aircraft? At the lower end for sure, as the 737-800 shows - but there would be the problem. If I have two aircraft in my shop, which one should I sell the customer. The same problem appeared when Boeing bought McDonnell Douglas and the MD-95 became the B717. The B717 had to die, as it was a stand-alone aircraft, not part of a family - Boeing sold the 737-600 to SAS although the B717 would have been much better in costs for the SAS missions.
And what about Southwest, by far the largest Boeing customer today? They just ordered the 737-800, but all of their other (500+) aircraft have less than 150 seats and they also like the B717 as an addition with even lower capacity. I cannot imagine Southwest going to an all 180+ seater fleet in the future just to keep being a Boeing customer. And I cannot imagine that incremental improvements to the 737-700 are enough to keep them from defecting to Bombardier (they might one day decide to build a CS500, although saying differently, Embraer or even Airbus.
There were "just" about 757's build - for sure Boeing counts on creating a new big market segment when they really build that small twin-aisle. The question is, if that market segment will be there when the aircraft appears...