Odds and Ends: Good week for Boeing; 777X-no news yet; SPEEA; Bombardier earnings call

Good Week for Boeing: Last week was a good one for Boeing: after a short delay, United Airlines received its second 787 and the type entered domestic service with the carrier Sunday (technically, of course, that’s “this” week). An order for the 737 MAX with lessor ALAFCO of Kuwait was firmed up; this was announced at the Farnborough Air Show; and a new order with Russian lessor Aviation Capital Services for the MAX was also announced.

777X Customer Meeting: Boeing hosted a customer meeting Oct. 31-Nov. 1 for discussion of the 777X and the outcome is, basically, no news. We talked with some attendees. Boeing showed customers concepts that have been widely written about: an -8X that is about 350 passengers, a -9X that is about 407 passengers, around 8,500nm range (with Emirates wanting more range but the majority of customers opposed as unneeded for their operations); an LX (similar to the current LR model); composite wings and wing box, new engines, undecided on sole source or dual source engines, a metal fuselage and some new systems.

No conclusions were reached and there’s no near-term launch of the aircraft planned.

SPEEA and Boeing: After things seemed to improve between the engineers union SPEEA and Boeing following the former’s 96% rejection of a contract offer by the latter, negotiations seems to be heading south again. SPEEA is Tweeting regularly about poor progress, members are doing informational picketing and voluntary overtime is being rejected. The contract expires this week and SPEEA members could be asked to authorize a strike.

Bombardier Earnings Call: The third quarter earnings call is Wednesday. We expect BBD to announce what it has been telegraphing most of the year: a three-six month delay in first flight of the new CSeries, which it had been trying to achieve by year-end. We think it will be at the long-end of this window, with an equal delay for EIS, currently slated for December 2013.

Louis Gallois offers advice: Louis Gallois, the recently retired CEO of EADS, offered some advice to the French President on economic revival of the economy.

Overdue AirAsia order: Remember the order for 100 Airbus A320s expected from AirAsia by the Farnborough Air Show? Looks like it is finally to be announced.