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!

Another hint for the A330neo launch

I just found the Earnings Call Transcript from ALC for the first quarter, There is an interesting part there (fair quote from Seeking Alpha):

John D. Godyn - Morgan Stanley, Research Division
That's very helpful. And Steve, you mentioned the A330 NEO. I was wondering if you had any sort of initial thoughts that you'd care to share?
Steven F. Udvar-Hazy - Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Yes, we've had a lot of going back and forth with Airbus, with the engine manufacturers, with a number of airlines that have sort of raised their hand as potential launch or co-launch customers for the airplane. Basically, I think what Airbus is evaluating is a new generation of A330-200s and 300s with engines that are of more current technology and are being currently devised or in operation, derivatives of engines already in operation that would offer a double-digit increase in efficiency and fuel savings. And I think Airbus is looking at that very carefully as a possible alternative to the A350-800.

What do we learn from that:

1. The A330neo will be launched at the Farnborough Airshow!
2. ALC will be one of the launch customers.
3. There will (probably) be a A330-200neo, not just a A330-300neo.

What do we not know (yet)? Who will be the engine provider?

Anybody wants to bet against that?`

Not that I think that everything that SUH says and wants is becoming reality: SUH was one of the vocal opponents of the A320neo before it was getting launched. I remember him argueing against the A320neo at the european ISTAT meeting in October 2010, telling the audience that the benefits in fuelburn and noise were not much more than a PR gag. Reality told us otherwise meanwhile and ALC is a large customer for the A320neo as well as the Boeing counterpart, the B737MAX.

Now, in the case of the A330neo, he does not see the fuelburn (and noise as well) benefit as a PR benefit only. Life is everlasting learning...

B757 replacement - NSA or NST?

Two different concepts for a B757 successor emerged over the last few weeks.
First, there was an article by "The Motley Fool" (not exactly an aviation expert website) speculating about a B757MAX (and  Scott Hamilton from Leeham Co. confirming these rumours), with composite wings and a new engine. Although this rumour was quickly dismissed by Steve Wilhelm from the Puget Sound Business Journal and another "Fool" and Boeing itself assured that they are not planning any B757MAX, it would be a relatively straigthforward and easy way to fight against the A321neo, as the numbers and the market already showed that the B737MAX-9 will be an inferior aircraft (I expect some announcements in the not too distant future that will further show that Boeing has a problem here). A new wing, new wingbox and new engines (which would be a few percentage points better in SFC than the PW1100G and the LEAP-1A) would provide enough improvement to be a very good aircraft for thin transatlantic routes. But then what? Airbus would not stand by and could develop a A322 with a similar fuselage length, also a new wing and wingbox and the same engines. And with successors for both of the narrowbody families planned for 2030+ that will likely start at today's B737-800 size, an EIS around 2022 would provide a production run of 10 years at best. So that concept does not really make sense.
Meanwhile also Scott Hamilton wrote another article about the subject, making clear that the "757 replacement" can only be part of a new family of aircraft, starting at the B737-800NG/B737MAX-8 size and topping at about 240 passengers, set by the aspirations from Airbus regarding the A321neo and that an EIS would be not anytime soon, i.e. not 2022.

The other concept emerged from an article by Aspire Aviation and this is completely different. Daniel Tsang proposes a small twin aisle family with a 2-3-2 seating configuration, comprising of two models between 200 and 240 seats. This of course would be a clean sheet design with the associated high development costs. The B737MAX family would still sell, he thinks, for shorter routes, as the "NSA" (New Small Airplane, not the other one...) would be optimised for routes around 4000nm in a 200-220 seat 2-class layout (where a B737MAX-9 and a A321neo would have to trade range versus payload).

But would the market be large enough for such an aircraft to justify a completely new aircraft, built from (today) very expensive carbon fibres? I think: yes and no! No, as I think the seat count of 200-240 would not cover a market potential large enough. And yes, if this NSA (albeit then not so "small") would occupy a larger part of the market, ranging from the B757-200 all the way up to the B767-300, say, from 220-280 passengers and a range around 4,500nm, to cover transatlantic flights between the US East Coast and Europe. This aircraft would have the potential to replace all the B757-200W,  B767-300ER, A330-200/300 and maybe also some B787-8 that are used on these routes today (and more then).

Now: could this aircraft be the first Boeing to be powered by a geared engine?
A few weeks ago Rolls Royce very openly committed themselves to the geared technology and pursues such an engine for 2025. As I do not believe we would see the "NSA" (I would call it "NST", for "New Small Twin") before 2025, that could fit in Boeing's time planning.
Now with two of the big engine companies in the "geared camp" what will GE do? My bet: the next generation of narrowbody engines (beyond the A320neo/B737MAX generation) will be "geared only" - including GE! Of course nobody from GE (or Safran) will say so openly today, because that would mean to admit concede against the "gear". But I am sure that behind the scenes GE is working closely with their new affiliate Avio Aero in Italy (providing  the Fan Drive Gear System for the PW1100G) to have a an engine architecture ready for the mid 2020's. And Snecma is working on a geared open rotor in the Clean Sky project.

Everyone's a winner, baby...

Boeing‘s Randy Tinseth can’t resist to screw every statistics in his (i.e. Boeing’s ) favour. This makes him of course no different from John Leahy, head of sales at Airbus. Now, after Air Canada firmed up their order for 61 B737MAX yesterday, Tinseth claimed that the B737MAX gained more than 50% of the market since it’s first order. Granted – Boeing has now 1908 firm orders for the B737MAX in the books and Airbus sold “just” 1521 A320neo since the first order for the B737MAX from Southwest Airlines. But does that really matter? Boeing’s first firm order for the B737MAX from Southwest Airlines in December 2011 came more than one year after the launch of the A320neo on Dec. 1^st, 2010 and Airbus booked the first order for the A320eo from Virgin America in late December that year. By the time of the first B737MAX order Airbus already had 1,176 firm orders for the A320neo family and so they had 89.55% of the market (“Neo vs. MAX”).

In 2012, the first full year where the B737MAX was available, Boeing had the upper hand: 949 firm order for the B737MAX meant a 66.5% market share for that year with Airbus being in the overall lead with 61.6% (1,764 vs. 1,099 orders).

In 2013 the picture reversed in favor of Airbus –they sold another 937 A320neo aircraft where Boeing gained “only” 703. Overall Airbus held a market share of 59.7%.

Until today in 2014 Boeing sold 117 B737MAX – Airbus sold 57 A320neo. So one could conclude that the market lead for Airbus dwindles away. But there are a few large already won campaigns for Airbus  to be firmed up: Tigerair (37 A/C), China Eastern (70 A/C), ANA (30 A/C) and a few others – like Monarch – are waiting for their winner. So I guess Airbus’s John Leahy will soon have an answer for Tinseth’s anaylsis with his own statistics.

The better choice than throwing  with statistics would maybe be that both gentlemen would unite to sing the Hot Chocolate song "Everyone's a winner" - although I cannot imagine them singing together the line "Making love to you is such a thrill..."...

In retrospective, the decision by Airbus to launch the A320neo brought record full order books for both and helped both to fend off Bombardier's CSeries. And there is some truth of course in the claim that SVP Andy Shankland from Airbus made at the ISTAT America this year, that it would be fair to say that the B737MAX was launched in Toulouse. So Randy could bring a bottle of wine to the party to celebrate their appearance in front of the aviation audience. I would give a fortune to see and hear them...

Three in a row, two in a week..

There is some movement in the A320neo engine market right now, it seems. P&W scored three "wins" in a row recently. After BOCA announced an order for 15 A320neo to be powered with the PW1100G-JM, this week both Tigerair and ANA selected the Geared Turbo Fan for 37 and 30 aircraft.
I would expect that we will see more decisions about A320neo engine options being taken this year as EIS is now less than 20 months away. The PW1100G-JM should gain certification this summer so that it will maybe have an advantage in customer confidence (and this is badly needed by P&W after the PW6000 disaster).
Right now the GTF has a slightly larger market share with 896 aircraft (866 shown here by pdxlight plus 30 by ANA) to be powered versus 827 to be powered by the LEAP-1A. But there are large campaigns waiting for a winner, like Lion Air (174 aircraft), American Airlines (130 aircraft) and easyjet (100 aircraft), so the picture can turn by any of these campaigns decided.