July 2008 Archives

Sometimes winglets look right and sometimes they don't. On the 767-300, it turns out, they look just about perfect. Great pix here courtesy of my colleague Jon Ostrower and Aviation Partners Boeing. If only they made sense on the -200 - could've solved all Boeing's problems.

Well, depends which question they're trying to answer. If they're trying to work out how many airliners they're going to sell in future then it's one number, if they're trying to persuade the USAF to buy their tanker as the KC-X then it's a vastly different number. Specifically, it's $70-80 a barrel in the first case, anything up to $200 in the second.

When I wrote on 18 August 2006 that "I've got my own doubts about how much money can be justified to keep large jets flying" I may have inadvertently given the impression that I had doubts about how much money could be justified to keep large jets flying.

Having spent a gloriously unproductive ten minutes at Farnborough this afternoon watching an Avro Vulcan fly (see pic below) I would like to assure readers that I think the amount of money appropriate for keeping Vulcans flying is, basically, whatever it takes.

I apologise for any confusion that may have been caused. Readers are encouraged to attend the Farnborough public days this weekend for further clarification.

Mario Heinen is moving inside Airbus and his job as head of the A380 programme is being taken by Alain Flourens (left). He's been running the narrowbody programme for the last couple of years, but was president of Airbus Military in its earlier days. Heinen will now head the transnational cabin and fuselage centre of excellence, replacing Rudiger Fuchs who is leaving the company for reasons I know not. Flourens is replaced by one Daniel Baubil, a procurement expert. Full announcement below.

Boeing VP marketing Randy Tinseth is in London today where he personally presented the company's 2008 Current Market Outlook (CMO) for the next 20 years. This is aerospace we're talking about - the numbers are bemusingly huge and they make the industry's traumas look like a minor hiccup in the long run. If you believe them of course. Like Airbus' Global Market Forecast, Boeing's is produced bottom-up, airline by agonising airline, so it's hard to argue with.

But, the suspicion is that neither of them can resist giving it a little self-serving spin at the end. Here are my key points out of it - to stress, they're mine, not Boeing's.