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’Boeing warns on Dreamliner losses
Airbus rival Boeing’s troubled 787 Dreamliner looks unlikely to make a profit for at least two years after its first delivery, as the aircraft-maker warned on Wednesday that the programme could make a loss in its initial stages.
Airplane graveyard forensics
When airlines retire their aircraft — or simply decide to temporarily cutback capacity — they send their airplanes to hangars, or in some cases, to places like the Mojave desert in California. So-called ‘Airplane graveyards’ in the region look something like this:
Guest post: Steve Ridgway on the outlook for the airline industry
The Virgin Atlantic CEO writes:
Our industry has never seen anything like it. It’s been a year in which airline management teams have had to cope with major swings in oil prices and a swingeing cut in demand in recent months.
On aerospace over-supply
The Paris Air Show starts next week, on June 15, and is traditionally a chance for aircraft manufacturers to show off new wares while one-upping each other with aircraft order announcements. But with their major customers in turmoil,
The art of aircraft ordering
Like the Japanese sport of sumo wresting, the art of placing an aircraft order is about two things — timing and bulk.
United Airlines may have perfected both aspects. From the Wall Street Journal:
United Airlines has asked Boeing Co.
Erstwhile Dreamliners of RBS Aviation
On Monday, we mentioned RBS’s role in financing the purchase of Phenom aircraft for a new business jet operator.
Dublin-based RBS Aviation Capital leases and finances aircraft and engines, with ownership of 372 aircraft and loans secured against some 320 planes,
Very light jets look very vulnerable
An Irish-based, low-cost executive jet airline is all set to launch this September, reports CIARAN HANCOCK
IN AVIATION parlance, JetBird chief executive Stefan Vilner has “pushed back” and is about to begin his taxi to the runway.
Aerospace mothballs
Ahead of Boeing’s results on April 22, we thought this chart might be instructive. Click to enlarge.
That’s the number of aircraft in temporary storage. The increase in late 2008/early 2009 is startling — and much worse than in the previous down cycle,
Diverging strategies, airline edition
While most of the world’s airlines weather recession by hunkering down, trimming capacity to cut costs and deal with slackening demand, there are those that have a somewhat different strategy. Spot the odd ones out in this Bernstein chart.
ILFC: The ‘F’ stands for…
ILFC, the plane-leasing unit of black-hole insurer AIG, may be seeking its own bailout soon.
March 25 (Bloomberg) — American International Group Inc.’s plane-leasing unit said it may not be able to survive without help from its parent company or new access to credit.
Fun with maths at Airbus
Saj Ahmad, of aerospace blog FleetBuzz Editorial, points us in the direction of some interesting numbers from Airbus yesterday.
The European planemaker announced a cut in production rates for its aircraft on Thursday.
Aerospace datapoint du jour
From Ryanair’s third-quarter results. (FT Alphaville’s calculations).
Proceeds from sales of Boeing 737-800 in Q3 2008 – €26.5m each. (Five aircraft sold for roughly €132.6m)
Proceeds from sales of Boeing 737-800 in Q3 2009 – €21.2m each.
Airbus prepares to double vendor financing
Airbus is preparing to double the amount of vendor financing it offers to about €2bn next year to support commercial aircraft sales and maintain deliveries as its customers struggle to obtain funding from traditional sources such as banks and lessors.