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Boeing and Airbus Can't Make Enough Airplanes To Keep Up With Demand (axios.com)
From a report on Axios: Aerospace manufacturers like Boeing and Airbus cannot produce airplanes fast enough to meet demand despite what the Wall Street Journal calls "one of the industry's steepest production increases since World War II." The run up in demand is partially the result of fast-growing airline industries in the Middle East and China. Manufacturers will need to increase production by 30% to meet current orders, and such booming demand is one sign of a healthier global economy.
Long leed times and a historic boom/bust cycle. Large airplanes are contracted years ahead of time. Keeping the line running is paramount. Start/stop is a company and/or model killer.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
There's competition in the airline industry (Boeing, Airbus being two big players) so they can't do that.
If Boeing raises prices, customers will to go Airbus. And vice versa.
If anything they may even LOWER prices to retain customers as waiting lists get longer. "Sure, you have to wait longer for your aircraft but you save 20% going with us over Airbus!"
Boeing still does much better than new entrants have. See the Japanese and Chinese efforts to make their own wide bodies.
I'm surprised Tupolev isn't trying to get a bigger slice. But first they have to get competitive on fuel costs.
Nobody is turning on a dime and jumping into the market.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
From what I saw at my time with Boeing, they don't do well when they are under pressure. Things get rushed, forgotten or hastily slapped together. There was an anonymous thread a few weeks ago on an aircraft discussion board as to whether it was OK to use hardware store grade fasteners on aircraft structures. I shuddered. Because I've seen it come close to that when they ran out of approved parts.
Boeing (also known as the Lazy-B) builds good stuff when it's done at a leisure pace. But try to accelerate things and they go to hell pretty quickly.
Have gnu, will travel.
Aircraft aren't like cars, you can't just hop from one to the next. There are certifications, training, simulators, supply chain, support infrastructure, etc. etc. It's why low-cost carriers are total monocultures in terms of aircraft they use. Ryanair *only* flies the 737NG. Easyjet *only* flies the A320 family.
Boeing 787 was around a decade from initial "what can we do" to entry into service - the Airbus A350XWB was a little more at 11 years.
Neither manufacturer has a clean sheet design in the pipeline right now, so we probably wont see a new widebody until at least the 2030s.
Actually the article is a load of crap - Boeing is reducing 777 production right now, is in talks to end 747 production and has scrapped a production increase in the 787 (and may indeed scrap an entire production line in the next few years).
The only aircraft seeing production rate increases at the moment (that arent related to a new program coming on line, such as the A350XWB) are the A320 series and the 737 series - those sell well more than a thousand copies each year, with production lagging sales considerably.
And China and India are booming. The largest airplane order was from Indica, a domestic airline from India. 410 orders for Airbus 320. Airbus with their government funding is able to give them very long lease terms and guaranteed buy back price. Boeing needs to raise cash on commercial paper, Airbus does so on government underwritten bonds. But that is a different story.
Confluence of these factors, and a general belief that oil is never going to exceed 100$ ever again is fueling the optimism and large airplane orders. Oil producers trying to kick their oil dependence are trying to become transportation centers. Now a days it is impossible to beat the fares offered by Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Etihad to India/China from USA. So even the oil states are investing in airplanes.
They believe the moment oil goes above 60, fracking becomes profitable again. At 80, the fracking will flood the market with over supply and oil will slideback.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Boeing 787 was around a decade from initial "what can we do" to entry into service - the Airbus A350XWB was a little more at 11 years.
Neither manufacturer has a clean sheet design in the pipeline right now, so we probably wont see a new widebody until at least the 2030s.
According to this Boeing functionary I talked to it is easier to simply upgrade the tail section or the wings (or just parts of the wings and tail) and re-engine an existing aircraft design than to build a new design from scratch because that way you only have to get the new components certified. The fuselage pretty much does as good a job now as it did in the 1960s and 70s so you don't have to get that re-certified/tested/whatever only what you upgrade. That's why they are still building Boeing 737s, a design that first flew in 1967. Over the years they have upgraded various bits and pieces of the 737 until the modern aircraft have fairly little in common with the first 737s. This may seem weird, it did to me, but it's apparently a damn sight cheaper to do these bit by bit upgrades than designing a whole new aircraft to fill the same market slot. Designing building and getting a new design tested/certified/etc. only makes sense if nothing in your current inventory fits the market slot you have in mind or if the new design very significantly improves performance and therefore marketability.
That's complete Bullsh*t.
I live in Seattle. Boeing announced it will be cutting jobs in 2017 due to " fierce competition with rival Airbus and a drop in new orders".
They will be cutting the number of planes produced per month.
http://www.bizjournals.com/sea...