Boeing 737 successor

Reportedly, Boeing focuses on a replacement of the B737 rather than doing something with the B777 in the nearer future. Mike Bair, who leads the B737RS studies at Boeing, said in the interview with Bloomberg, that "Six or nine months ago, we were leaning toward a bigger airplane sooner" - meaning that Boeing did not expect Airbus to launch the A320NEO and now finds itself captured between Bombardier on the low-end side of the single-aisle market and Airbus trying to steal traditional B737 customers. So they have to react, but reading carefully the Bloomberg interview and also the latest blog entries from Flightblogger Jon Ostrower makes me believe that they are not really sure what to do. Basically, they have two choices:

• A 6 abreast family sized from 149 seats (to please Southwest Airlines in particular) to around 200 seats. That would mean, that todays -700 would grow a little bit, todays -800 and -900 could stay in cabin lenght were they are today. For sure, cabin diameter has to increase to "speed loading and unloading, with either a wider aisle or possibly two aisles".
• That brings us to the second option: a 7 abreast in 2-3-2 configuration with two aisles. That configuration would make it very hard to please Southwest with a 149 seater. The aircraft's fuselage would be heavy in comparison with a 6 abreast aircraft, as the extra aisle takes extra space you have to buid around. Then the 149 seater would have 22 seat rows, compared to 23 rows of the  -700 with 137 seats in Southwest configuration today. It would not only look like a "Mini Guppy" (see below), but the problem is that in case of "one engine out" the stabilizer has a small moment arm and thus has to have a relatively large area, comprising weight for the larger family members, which does not need the large stab. Vice versa is the case with the wing: to get exceptable runway performance and range for the largest family member (runway performance is today's weak point of the -900ER), the wing has to be sized accordingly, which means extra weight for the smallest member. Of course that's a problem of today's B737 and A320 families, too. But with the CSeries entering the market, which is optimized around 135 seats and trans-con range, there is an alternative available which does not have to make this heavy compromises.

Another question Boeing and the engine manufacturers have to answer (first for themselves) is: what are the improvements in SFC for an engine with an EIS 2010 compared to EIS 2013 (CSeries) or EIS 2016 (A320NEO, C919, MS-21).
Boeing today dismisses the NEO as the 15% fuel burn improvement would be not enough. Remember: fuel is about 40% of Direct Operating Costs (DOC), even for narrowbodies (the numbers in Jon Ostrowers interview with Mike Bair seem to be too low) and it could rise even further. Historically, SFC gets down by 0.5-1% per year. So the best we can expect for a EIS 2020 engine is 4% better than the NEO engines will be - and they could be upgraded as the V2500 and the CFM56 were upgraded several times in their life.
So where could the big advantage in DOC come from?

• Aircraft weight: the new aircraft will benefit from new and lighter materials. If you read the interview, it will probably not be a plastic aircraft but a will get a Al-Li fuselage, like the CSeries.
• Plastic wing with smaller wing area (compared to today's B737) with higher aspect ratio: that leads to lower drag, lower weight and better aerodynamics
• The first two bullets both lead to a lower thrust requirement, directly leading to lower fuel burn.
• Maintenance costs of the aircraft: as the B737 today is the airline's darling when it comes to maintenance costs I can't see where this could get dramatically better
• Maintenance costs of the engines: as these engines will (most probably) be enhanced versions of the LEAP-X and the GTF or something similar from RR (Advantage 2 or 3), the difference in maintenance costs to the NEO engines would be small if at all. They could be even higher, as one way to improve SFC would be to raise OPR and therefore core temperatures.

Conclusion: there will be an cost advantage of the 737RS/797 compared to the NEO: of course. But will it be a step change? I can't see it today. And there are alternatives like the Bombardier CSeries and maybe another 5 abreast model from Embraer - they will decide what to do after Boeing announces their final plans - what could happen in June according to Bair. So in the second half of the year, we should have an announcement from Brasil...watch out!

This is how a 130 seater in a 2-3-2 seat configuration would look like...



Meanwhile there are three more blog entries about the possible 737 successor:
Part II
Part III
Part IV

Boeing's very ambitious plans

A lot of media articles are out there today covering what Boeing CEO McNerney told the audience at the Cowen and Co. conference: "We're gonna do a new airplane that will go beyond the capability of what the [A320]NEO can do." (Flightblogger has all the quotes)
Well, once Boeing really does a new airplane (in the A320/B737 category), it has to be better than the NEO for sure - otherwise there would be no reason to do it anyway.
But he went further on and said that the B787-10 would be a good replacement for the A330. No argument against that...then he also said, that Boeing is studying upgrades for the B777 (which is not new), but that these are targeted for after an EIS for the B737 replacement, which would be around 2020. In the meantime Boeing could do the 787-10.

??? Please what ???

After the more than three year late 787-8 Boeing should concentrate on delivering the B787-8, developing and the delivering the 787-9 before talking about three(!) new or at least heavily upgraded aircraft. Boeing lost too much credibility since the roll-out of the 787.

Interestingly Teal Group VP Aboulafia forecasted this week that Boeing would have to react against the NEO with a re-engined 737. And also Scott Hamilton reports that studies for the re-engining did not stop.
So by now nothing is certain - despite doing the B787-10, then B737RS and then 777up, it could also be 737RE, then 777up and then, if at all, the 787-10. I don't see an urgent need for the B787-10 anyway, as the 787-9 would pretty much do the job of the A330-300. The 787-10 would probably need a new undercarriage, more thrust than the Trent1000 and the GEnx are capable today and customer needs are diverging in terms of payload and range - a problem that reportedly also faces Airbus with the A350-1000.
I would be very interested to hear what major customers like Southwest are thinking about these ambitious plans...

New 787 delays?

Flightblogger today reports about possible new delivery delays of the 787 due to rework being done before delivering the aircraft to the customers.

As long as Boeing does not confirm that there is a new delay we have to talk about speculations – but so far, every time such a speculation came across there was at least some truth in it (just to sound polite…).

The article suggests that the first aircraft will still be delivered to ANA in mid February, but won’t be able to enter service without further modifications. I guess this is something the ANA management will not be happy with: they won’t take delivery of an aircraft without being able to take it with them – just makes no sense, even if we can assume that ANA will effectively get this aircraft for free.

But the exact timing of this first delivery does only have symbolic meaning anyway. (One of) the important question(s) is: when will Boeing be able to deliver the “Dreamliner” in numbers?

We would need more information about the specific problems and modifications that Boeing deals with. Jon Ostrower lists a few of them:

·        a flight deck window popping sound

·        cabin condensation issues

·        reworking passenger doors

·        workmanship issues on the aircraft's horizontal stabilizer (well-known problem)

·        changes to the Trent 1000 engine (Package B)

The pooping sound of the window should not be a big issue – proper insulation should care for that.

Cabin condensation seems to point to a problem with the air conditioning. That could mean everything: if they are lucky they just have to adjust the software – if they are unlucky, the humidifier are too small and have to be redesigned.

Reworking the passenger doors should not be the thing that holds up deliveries for months – reworking the stabilizers was probably more complicated, but is not a new problem and led to the latest (official) delivery slip – among the problems with the Trent engines.

So from what is being mentioned, a new slippage for months would not be explainable. The question is: which problems are not mentioned here?

I guess Boeing will soon have to give answers to the Flightblogger report – they should tell the public the whole story, they already lost too much credibility to just release the obvious…