Michel Merluzeau

Honestly, The NMA go/no go story is beginning to look like the Zoom meeting platform.  You just can’t wait to get rid of it. The issue for Seattle continues to center around the necessity to “protect and preserve”.

Situation Analysis

Market needs and conditions have changed, and are challenging over the next 2-4 years. Boeing has fallen behind Airbus in narrowbody market share, which was already dropping before the 737 MAX grounding.  Airbus now holds a 65%-35% lead in narrow-body backlog, a position that is increasingly worrisome to Boeing management and its shareholders.

The results are in. No real surprises in our latest joint AIG/AIR survey except perhaps for the strong showing of Charleston as a viable site for the next Boeing aircraft. MAX is viewed generally as a failed program, never recapturing its initial market traction.

Much can be said about the Boeing results announced this week.  While we have kept a close look at the abominable financial statements over 2019 and 2020, it is the strategic implications, however, that drive our thinking in light of the 2020 results.  Our sentiment is significantly more negative when it comes to the future of the organization, and the “too big to fail” argument, while still valid, is no longer a guarantee of status quo for repeated organizational and leadership failures.

2021 is upon us, and we, for now, will refrain (until later this month) from voicing an outlook that would be too affirming.  Our survey is being analyzed and will be released as part of our 2021 Outlook.  You may have come across the results from our AirInsight Media colleagues,  but these are different,  our interpretation of the data received goes through an actual process of analysis and data correlation.  We will have the 30+ page report ready for you in a few days.

Several items are toping our list for the first week of 2021:

Boeing is facing another challenging year –  transitioning from the 737MAX crisis

This research note is reserved content for AIR research clients only. Please login below and click on requested service to access content. Sign in to your AIR research account. Please ensure that the research note or forecast document that are you are trying to access is included in your current Read more…

We were invited to speak at the BABC Transatlantic conference and had the opportunity to briefly address some of the items that are going to shape the future of the transatlantic alliance as a new US administration looks now increasingly certain to take over on January 21.

Friday afternoon conversation about Boeing product strategy and how important it will be for the company to act sooner rather than later.  We discuss the market requirements post pandemic, the industrial challenges impacting the choices of material and technologies and conclude that this is Boeing’s

We have revised our scenario for 737 RTS.  Our assumptions are:

Modification and return to service of in service aircraft will be the bulk of reentry in service aircraft for 2021.  With the effect of the COVID crisis diminishing throughout 2021,  it is fundamentally the market overall capacity at absorbing new airframes that will be the determining factor for 737 (and A320) delivery

These are the summary slides and audio of our webinar of 29 September with AirInsight discussing the outlook for UAC and COMAC.
The accompanying webinar audio is available here

As Boeing is likely preparing to migrate the 787 program final assembly to South Carolina, questions are emerging about the evolution and the future of the production capacity of the company in its native Puget Sound area. Yet again, we are facing the exact same sempiternal debate about Boeing, and its supposed inevitable departure from WA state, or are we?

What is the current contraction of production in Everett telling us about Boeing’s near to medium term programmatic plans, and is Everett role likely to change, rather than disappear…