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’For Skymark, superjumbo orders show super-timing
Rolls-Royce and European aircraft maker EADS are still reeling from the fallout of recent jet engine failures in their Airbus’ A380 super-jumbos (and for Rolls-Royce an additional incident on a Boeing 747),
A380 engine failure hits EADS, Rolls-Royce
Shares in European planemaker EADS fell as much as 2.5 per cent on Thursday after an Airbus A380 operated by Qantas, was forced to make an emergency landing in Singapore. It seems one of the plane’s four Rolls-Royce-manufactured engines exploded — causing the flight to be abandoned just 15 minutes after takeoff.
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,
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.
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.
France to aid Airbus
The French government is to provide €5bn in credit guarantees to help Airbus sell aircraft to customers that are struggling to secure finance for their purchases because of the credit crunch. Paris will channel the money to the aerospace group via French banks,
When customers get what they want: Aerospace edition
Boeing’s Vice President of Marketing came under a lot of flak for a post on his blog a few months back:
… some “white noise” can be desirable on an airplane, and even soothing (the difference, say, between the sound of a power saw in the background,
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.
BA in landmark $8.2bn order for Airbus, Boeing
British Airways placed its biggest order for aircraft in a decade Thursday with a landmark move to buy both the Airbus A380 superjumbo and the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. The orders, valued at $8.2bn at list prices before heavy discounts,