Odds and Ends: Bernstein: no 777X before 2020; Alaska, Frontier and Competition; A380 repair costs; Boeing labor challenges

No 777X before 2020: Bernstein Research, in a note issued today, says it doesn’t see delivery of the Boeing 777X before 2020. Also: on a recently completed trip to Asia, Bernstein wrote this:

There’s clearly huge demand for the 787. There was a lot of excitement about it, but Boeing was heavily promoting the 747-8, for which the company is certainly seeking more orders, with few orders for the passenger version and the air freight market being very weak. To date, the majority of orders for that airplane have been freighter orders. This is a relatively small program, but we think it is the most difficult within Boeing’s portfolio right now. …[Y]ou’re probably not going to see the growth that Boeing had once hoped for there. That’s certainly how we have been making assumptions, as well.

Alaska, Frontier and Competition: The Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation has this analysis about Alaska and Frontier airlines, which aside from being a little geographically-challenged, is one of CAPA’s usual well-researched and thought-0ut looks at airlines. (In fairness, CAPA often strays from the Asia-Pacific, but we couldn’t resist the quip.) CAPA now actually calls itself Centre for Aviation.

A380 Repair Costs: Aviation Week has this article detailing the costs to Emirates Airlines for repairs to the Airbus A380 wing bracket cracks.

Boeing Labor Challenges: Boeing seems headed for war again with labor unions. Here’s an article from The Everett Herald with several links within it; one from MyNorthwest.com about SPEEA; and one from The Seattle Times about SPEEA.

Cargolux and Qatar: We posted some news about Cargolux and Qatar yesterday; The Seattle Times has this piece about the threat to the Boeing 747-8F from Cargolux’s problems.

Airbus, Boeing battle for US MAX-NEO market share

With the announcement by Alaska Airlines for 20 737 MAX 8s, 17 737 MAX 9s (and 13 Next-Generation 737-900ERs), Airbus and Boeing continue their battle for the US market.

There are still a number of customers who have not ordered either aircraft. US Airways has been exclusively an Airbus customer. Airbus lost a hard-fought battle to Boeing in the competition for the A321-737-900ER order. ILFC orders seem to be on hold pending its Initial Public Stock offering.

737 MAX	A320neo	No Order Yet
American*	Spirit Airlines	US Airways
Aviation Capital Group**	Frontier Airlines	Delta Air Lines
Southwest Airlines	jetBlue
United Airlines	American*
Air Lease Corp	Aviation Capital Group
GECAS	CIT Aerospace
Alaska	Virgin America
*To be affirmed in bankruptcy court**Commitment, not yet converted to firm order	ILFC

AMR’s goofy merger explorations

So AMR says it will explore merger opportunities as part of its bankruptcy process.

The choices of potential partners are odd, indeed. According to The Wall Street Journal, AMR’s choices for a potential combination with American Airlines are US Airways, JetBlue, Alaska Air Group, Republic Airways Holdings’s Frontier Airlines, and Virgin America.

The Wall Street Journal notes: Besides US Airways, none of the others has publicly expressed a desire to merge with American. JetBlue and Alaska Air have indicated they prefer to remain independent, and people familiar with closely held Virgin America also said the company isn’t interested. Asked about that, Mr. Horton said: “If somebody’s not interested, they’re not interested.”

The choices, aside from US Airways, are pretty goofy. None is a network carrier that would add a system to American. JetBlue and Alaska Airlines would certainly beef up the East and West coasts, respectively, where American is weak. JetBlue would add strength to American’s JFK international hub. But neither brings a network to the airline.

Frontier Airlines and Virgin America wouldn’t bring even the attributes offered by JetBlue and Alaska. Frontier’s Denver hub competes with United Airlines and Southwest Airlines. Does American really want to get into this fight? We think not.

Virgin America, which regularly posts huge losses, isn’t strong in San Francisco where it is based and neither is American. We don’t understand why this airline is even mentioned.

The only airline that makes sense for consideration among those mentioned is US Airways. US Airways has a network, strong East Coast presence, and a sharp management, which wants to be in control and this seems to be the biggest obstacle for the AMR/American management.

And it only makes sense for the US Airways management to be the surviving one.

Odds and Ends: TSA, 787 endurance and Frontier, again

This just in:

Busted. We’re a big fan of the Discovery Channel’s Mythbusters. In the warped sense of humor department, we found this to be pretty amusing, since nobody got hurt.

Original Post:

TSA: Anyone who has flown in the US knows that the airport experience is probably the worst part of traveling. It’s worse than the abominable on-board service now provided by most US airlines. It’s worse than the crowded airplanes and the cramped legroom. TSA’s use of body x-ray machines is invasive. The 3-1-1 rule about liquids is absurd and the requirement to remove shoes before going through magnometers is silly.

In Europe, the body x-ray machines we’ve been through (and we had no choice for an alternative method) are less objectionable. The particular machine at Delta’s Amsterdam connecting gate was a stick figure, not an x-ray of the body itself. The stick figure shows dots where “something” appears and the security person did a quick pat-down of these locations. Much less invasive than the TSA. And the shoes stayed on. This actually was the first body scanner we went through since they were introduced and because it was a stick figure, we had no objection.

Business Week has this article talking about the TSA and its silly policies.

Boeing spent billions designing the 787 (we’re thinking only of the standard expense here, not the overruns) to dramatically improve the passenger experience, and it did a very good job. And Boeing is spending lots of money to aid airlines in training, to reduce in-flight fuel expenses and to improve the air traffic management systems.

Too bad it can’t control what the airlines do with the interior, but even that isn’t the real challenge: it’s the airport experience.

Odds and Ends: Frontier Airlines, first 737 at rate 35, Embraer

Frontier Airlines: At the Paris Air Show, Republic Airways Holdings ordered 80 A319/320neos with CFM LEAP engines, and the order was touted as the death knell by some for the Bombardier CSeries–also ordered by Republic for Frontier (40+40). As we wrote at the time, the Airbus/CFM deal was clearly a financial bail out for Frontier, which leased Airbuses from GECAS and had maintenance agreements with CFM. The leases and maintenance agreements were restructured for the ailing airline, and Airbus agreed to contribute a modest amount of cash to the airline.

We were of the opinion then–and are more convinced now–that Frontier won’t survive t0 take delivery of either the Airbus or Bombardier orders. It’s squeezed between United and Southwest airlines at Denver and between Southwest and Delta at Milwaukee. This article in the Denver Post neatly summarizes the current situation.

Will Frontier’s likely demise kill off the CSeries? Not hardly. We would be willing to bet BBD is double-booking these order positions. Doing so against weak airline orders is common practice among the OEMs.