Emirates One Of The World's Largest Airlines

"We" are in negotiation with both Airbus and Boeing for fleet renewal, so says Emirates. However, The A 380 is the odd airplane out of these negotiations. The main airplanes on the docket for discussions are for the Boeing 787-10s and Boeing 777X which has already firmed up launch customer numbers of 35 777-8X and 115 9X for a total of 150 777X. It also left open a tender of 40 787-10's which is not finalized for strategic reasons. The Airbus company would do anything to stop a 787-10 order placement. Emirates is in the market for buying A350-900's and 1000's for a very generous Airbus quote and blocking the 787-10 LOI deal standing by. Can't really tell how Emirates will divide its order pie but one thing is sure, Airbus has flubbed its A380 deal-making for the near term. 

Emirates is the launch customer for the 777X with 150 of its types ordered. It may want another 20 if a great sell-off begins with A-380 disassembling the Emirate A-380 fleet footprint. It will take another 20 777X to fill the passenger gap that Emirates will have created by retiring the A-380 first. But Emirates loves big board gamesmanship and more is in play with the manufacturers and with Emirates than can possibly meet the eye. 

First, there is the leveraging of order price downward when holding one manufacturer against the other.

Secondly is the world prestige over owning the most advanced big airplane. The 777X would be that Airplane while the A-380 slides to a weak second place traveling secondary routes as it slides down in interest in from its early immense start. The 787-10 is so new it could revolutionize an airline quickly.

Thirdly, Emirates wants Boeing back to the negotiation table when Airbus pleads for its A-330-900NEO and A350's. It may already be happening for those forty 787-10 intents. 

Commonly phrased, "if we can agree to new options language, new pricing structure, or even build slots thrown in during a year over year build guarantee, let's go back and do it."  

If Boeing goes back to Emirates to sort out the death of the A-380 and assist on the following Emirates fleet renewal plan, expect to see major gamesmanship following this situation for years to come. It may change how both Boeing and Airbus will take no prisoners over any deal-making.  Boeing has already shown an aggressive sales style for 2018. 

Boeing is only one plane type away from filling its complete dance card with the worldwide airlines. The 797 is more import as a market big hit than just another airplane because it provides type completeness. Boeing wants this so desperately to hit it this out of the park before making a 797 commitment. Boeing is not ready with its Boeing data on the project progression so it seems Boeing is waiting for an engine decision and that will take an additional 12 months.

Ground Hog Day Is About Airports

Having gone to terminal X by underground train at both SeaTac and Denver airports makes me some kind of  Groundhog expert. There are more underground trains gophering a passenger about than those two airports connecting respective terminals. But on Groundhog day it becomes a solution for big aircraft unloading. The national trend suggests trains, planes, and automobiles before the hotel stay.

The groundhog is coming out to predict airports will adjust in 2019 when losing the A380 and gain the 777X in 2020

Airbus Has Flopped In Front Of Emirates

No matter how well intended a corporation makes it case for a customer or how big that customer is for your airline business, it is wise to listen to that same customer and make special considerations for that Customer. Well, Airbus just tunned out Emirates suggestions over the Emirates A-380 Plus suggestion and this is with an overwhelming love for the A380. Emirates is reshuffling its fleet in light of this condition between Airbus and Emirates. The A-350-1000 is still in play for an order as well as the 787-10 and 777X.

However, the collapse of any A-380 deal makes it a more difficult case for the Airbus family of wide-bodied. There is also a caveat lurking around potential deals this big. Boeing seems poised to infiltrate with Emirates and seize the Airplane market with more than a few sweeteners. Boeing will give Emirates essentially what it wants including those big GE9X engines. Emirates is not so anxious to wrap itself with world's largest aircraft symbolism the A380 it gave over the last 15 years. The World's largest twin-engine makes its own statement as airport grew suspicious of crowds disembarking in one massive flow to the luggage station for picking-up luggage at the same airport. Even though the 777X promises a smaller passenger offload by 75 travelers, it can market a better plan for a gaggle of people seeking a sense of direction at the airport hub. 

Telling your biggest A-380 customer "we can't do what you want", suggest Airbus is caught in its own marketing tracks. It is stuck under its own airplane weight and it sinks the program when trying to save all the customers all the time. Airbus has been caught in a leadership vacuum at this time as it shifts corporate heads around. All are afraid of leading the company down a perilous path in their first few months on the job as if leading the light brigade, with a battle cry of "We can't do that", "it isn't our plan to do that!" Boeing takes note and comes back to Emirates with a can-do we'ill build your vision scheme. The 777X explores a plane B approach making more when operating two 777X's than what could ever be done with one A380. World's biggest twin-engine with folding wings is really cool. A double-decker is so yesterday and inefficient. 

Emirates will want another 20 777X and confirmation for 40 787-10's.

Airbus Is Making Boeing Do It, The 797, Boeing wins The Trifecta

Long has Airbus Airbus crept up Boeing's market pinnacle. It has done so so while Boeing took notice. By now, most aviation analyst also has noticed Boeing let go of its 757 program and did not address the A321 success. It just so happens Airbus leads Boeing by those same numbers from A-321 orders that Boeing has fallen behind in the single-aisle market. Airbus has taken about 2200 A-321 orders to date which is what its lead is over Boeing in the single-aisle market. 

However, Boeing's wide-bodied foray into the market has saved the Boeing pride while tarnishing the Airbus machismo. The A380 is dying an untimely death as orders have flooded in for the 787 and the A380 is regarded as a White elephant because the capacity required and markets sought, make for poor risk partners. The 787 does not have to load passengers up to 90% each time it flies like the A-380 to make money for the airline flying it. The 787 can fly at 85% capacity and make money all day long. The A380 saga is more of an indicator measuring Airbus mistakes. However, being late to the Wide-body ball hasn't helped Airbus either. The Airbus A350 family remains behind to pick up the WB meat scraps in the aviation kitchen. I am sure the A-1000 would have been a best seller during the 1990s but the 777X is made for the 21st century and it shows. The A-350-1000 may go the way of the dinosaurs or in this case the A350-1000.

The 777X has already amassed more orders than the A350-1000 at this juncture and if Boeing pulls a trifecta out of its engineering hat then Airbus will slowly slide into obscurity with a strong European contingency backing it up and propping it up for a long time. This brings us back to the Boeing Trifecta the 797, 787, and 777X. Its meant to exhaust Airbus down the backstretch while Boeing prepares for its 2030 single-aisle model which is made for production efficiency as much as .operational efficiency.

Boeing tipped its hand with programs that will quickly build at a lower cost doing, more units while Airbus languishes with its tube and stick models. Boeing hasn't announced the 797 yet until it has something to show customers, which leads me to believe in a production facility near Everett Wa is a 797 mock-up awaiting cameras for what it will look like when it is built for the first time. It will feature all the advances in a model for customers to pour over in that warehouse building. The point of a multi-million mock-up is to generate more sales before the big blow out announcement. Boeing wants more the just four hundred launch orders, it wants the market which Airbus could not enter over the next ten years. It wants a "market nullification" placed on Airbus' head since it succeeded with the A-321 and Boeing had no answer for that model. And it has paid dearly for its own blunder in its prideful single-aisle market place. Boeing's 797 is a course correction. Boeing 787 is an artful tack when the wind shifted and the 777X is the best boat flying over ponds bigger than the backyard of most airlines. The Trifecta is not about three horse races it is about one big change of throw down that knife and pick up the automatic gun before someone shoots.

Boeing's 797 Hiccup

The long awaited 797 announcement, well, has become "long-awaited". The reasons why are legion. Winging It hopes to enumerate a few of the big stumbling blocks.

• Risk still exceeds reward.
• The timing window has shut.
• The bridge is too far

These are only a few delaying insecurity blankets weighing on Boeing with its decision-making for the 797. The top three are just opinions about what's up with Boeing and the 797 but are valid concerns.

The risk issue is causing Boeing great heartburn. What if Airbus can answer Boeing with an A-321 NEO type offer? What if Boeing's enthusiastic 797 customers back off and move-on-by without ordering the 797 because the customer already has adequate 787's and 737's? The questions keep pounding away at the risk stake and burying the reward portion of the equation. Boeing is on a tetter-totter vacillating back and forth to go all-in or play-it-safe. In my humble opinion, Boeing is too far down the 797 road to back off. They will risk it all for the promise of great reward and call Airbus' bluff building the NMA starting last year.

The timing window was ripe in 2018 but the Boeing wet insecurity blanket stopped them from opening that window of time because of the draft in the house was already a steady breeze. The timing for an announcement was late 2018 as an optimal point in time and now its become almost an afterthought for a 797 announcement which has now lost some market impact when/if it announces a 797 program at a later date. Paris is only a few months away and Boeing could sweep the show with some very large 797 Launch customer orders making the time window wide open again. Boeing will have to revolutionize aviation with this new concept and swoon the market away from Airbus.

Finally is the "Bridge Too Far"? Referring to an old World War II movie of the allies marching through the low country of Europe for capturing bridges on the Rhine river thus ending Germany's pillage of Europe. On the last bridge or the main target, it failed to take the biggest bridge at the Arnhem bridge crossing. Unlike World War II, Boeing's 797 bridge is an integral part of its offensive and without taking the bridgehead it could lose the aviation war. The movie and book emphasized the Bride Too Far war objective was unnecessary. Boeing is hesitating because it can't determine the 797 importance in this case. Boeing must cross the "Rhine river" in order to win the war. Arnhem was not needed to allies. The 797 is needed for Boeing.

It's About 141 Days Until The 797 Will Be Announced At Paris

After revealing over 1,000 engineers are working engineers directly on Boeing's 797 concepts, Paris is just a spot on the world stage for a big announcement event. The reveal will include launch customers and pending LOI's finalized after the first announcement is made. The tally at the launch will approach five hundred 797-7's and 797-6's consisting of both firm and MOU orders. Firm orders will be the launch customers. The American 797 order tally will include United, Delta, American, and SWA,

United is a prediction for at least a 50-50 firm to MOU orders and Delta will not be outdone with its own 50-50 intensity. American will become more conservative until the 797 program flies with the proposed engine. It may slowly sign in with American Airlines for 25 797-7's. Noe European Boeing customers may surprise market watchers when Ryan Air comes out with a 250 seat proposal for a 797-500 niche  NMA which sculptures in 250 passengers at a time using a dual aisle efficiency. It airport plane disembarking and embarking can cycle faster than the single-aisle with the small dual aisle.

The 797 NMA was made for Asia and orders could come in at a surprising rate. ANA almost bought the 787-8-300 during those heady days early years and now engineering blocks have been mostly removed during the sum of all Boeing's program. The 797 programs could risk making P&W engines with its GTF1000's making it an NMA specialty engine for every 797 airframes. After following some articulate about the GDF shortfalls, it indicates this is a better concept for the jet engine performance. The GTF has years of "efficiency catch-up" from its supply chain and faces a continuous problem solving from the wear during operations, while it is in service or on a wing. Boeing has a chance with P&W for the introduction of this engine with a clean sheet. P&W also has the developmental playbook overly corrected and lessons learned on the 320NEO program will springboard Boeing with a 50'000 lbs thrusts from P&W GTF engines'

The final count summary suggests a great show announcement will reach over 400 orders not counting any MOUS. The design completion percentage at launch announcement will be in the 80-90% range awaiting final customer input after which a formal launch announcement will automatically close all major changes unless a customer will buy 100 aircraft like Ryan Air did for 200 737 seats per plane. 

The Kerosene and Cargo Plane program 46 has arrived to the USAF

It was a matter of time this would happen and consuming the time it took. Boeing let loose two of its KC-46's today giving the Airforce a try on its own with the KC-46. If you thought it was flawed and full of problems according to every languishing journal in the press about the KC-46, it's natural to report even the dust balls in the cargo hold was found expressing a high volume of vitriolic comment as the social media authority. However, with the KC-problems, the Airforce has taken on two KC-46's with a Boeing promise to fix those same problems. If this makes sense then you are a defense contractor at heart.

Know this:

The Airforce and Boeing have been talking a long time about glitches and operational weaknesses. Both major players have spent copious amounts of time fixing hundreds of items during the first tranche of KC-46's delivered. The big problem publicized is the boom operators occasional vision glare during refueling with a receiver aircraft when the light angles just right. There is a workaround making the fuel transfer not an exact straight line operation of doing a fuel load at any angle of operation. The aircraft has to change its heading slightly to do the job. At best it could be called an awkward moment but manageable and not mission ending at all. This could be a three-year fix to develop new screens and software to mitigate the occasional glare problem at certain angles of light in rare cases.

The countless other checklist fix items are worked through during its initial operations with the Airforce which can be handled as encountered or tested once again as a defective glitch. The KC-46 will need operational time flying to fully wring out the kinks but the Airforce has seen enough from Boeing that the two principals will in a short time make this a valuable asset for the military. In fact, the Airforce cannot dilly dally about the program as its own legacy tanker dies of old age. It must induct a better tanker in the KC-46 even with some flaws rather than wait for all the fixes to come about. It can fly the KC-46 on missions today better than what it has on its own inventory like the KC-135. The time has come to backfill the airforce with manageable new tankers replacing its old tankers as fast as it can.

The Airforce would have not taken these first two from Boeing unless the light was seen from the end of the tunnel. The risk is very low and all fixes are now considered doable during the next years of operations.

The A380 Last Days

There are 331 firm orders by 18 customers for the passenger version of the Airbus A380-800, of which 234 have been delivered to 13 of those customers as of December 2018.

The Boeing 777X has a total of 326 orders matching what Airbus did with its market swallowing A380 for 331 orders. Boeing has no new orders for some time and Airbus is struggling to keep its A380 production model from an untimely death.

The Boeing intent is to nullify Airbus at every corner and it appears they have done so with its 777X offerings. This WB corner is awaiting the other shoe to drop from a Boeing announcement for a new medium-bodied (NMB) aircraft already assigned an unofficial family model number with an unofficial 797 designation. Boeing would love Airbus to counter punch before that NMB announcement with its A321 extended model.  Boeing may have its ducks in a row and will announce this summer at Paris for the 797 families of aircraft.

The A350-1000 is supposed to be a 777-300-ER killer but already it has met its match with the Boeing pair of 777-8X and 777-9X. The A350-1000 can carry 365 passengers for 8,400 miles. The 777-8x meets those Airbus metrics or exceeds them when considering the 777-8X while its 777-9X exceeds it by seating 405 passengers and loses some ground when flying for only 7,500 miles. But paired together the 777X model is a better fit for airlines when buying the two model layouts for the 777X. The 777X is just bigger and more efficient than the 777-300-ER, or the A350-1000.

The A380 can't compete and only in seats provided with a standard 500 seats it has to fill each time it takes-off. It's just a matter of time before airlines can dump the A380  and that will directly improve the 777X order book when the A380 reveals it has few takers for used A380 aircraft. The early sales attempts to support the notion of an A380 after-market points directly at Boeing's aspirations and not Airbus family of aircraft. 

The 777X is a long term project where if Airbus would roll out a design today to match it, it would be 10 years in the making for a first delivery A350-1100. It's in the midst of already examining a Boeing argument with a new A-350-1100 look for 400 plus passengers. Airbus is stuck with the Airbus A-350 line-up and it can only lengthen the design or widen it at the expense of going clean sheet to meet the 777X challenge. Airbus can't at this time afford an A-350 clean sheet for 400 passengers without stockholder fallout and a limited market segment and a return on its investment. 

Boeing has jumped Airbus on this thin segment with the 777X program. It would be unwise to clean sheet a New WB to cover its mistake with its own A380 prideful blunderings. The A380 program has died and an A-350-1100  would be an unwise venture unless Airbus can knock one out of the park clear to the moon. It sounds like Boeing's own moonshot is now paying dividends over the Airbus the A-380 blunder.

What Does Boeing Say, 777X At End of 1st Quarter

Dinesh Keskar, senior vice president, sales, for Asia Pacific and India at Boeing Commercial Airplanes says, The 777X will roll out by the end of March 2019. It's time to look at your calendar and mark it up with a highlighter. Today is January 15th. End of March is just 70 days away or about 10 weeks to go. It is a Tuesday today.

My best guess will be covered on Boeing's own website on a Wednesday, March 27, 2019. A Friday or weekend party would lose eyeballs for the event. The number seven is in play for the 27th. Add 27 together it equals the number 9 in the nomenclature for a 777-9X. Using this superior logic, an announcement could include a launch for the 777-10X when adding 7+7+7+9= 28 or combining those digits to a -10X. The number game could continue but it's easy to see March 27, 2019, as the roll-out date.

Remember this posted observation for a 777X rollout date. Science and math had everything to do with this prediction. Intellect had little to do with this guess. I had only one case of Diet Dr. Pepper and a case of Cheetos to rely upon when preparing for this event. Watch Boeing.com for further details coming soon. Almost all the 777-9X's "flying testbed number one" has all its lightbulbs screwed in. I have a reliable source inside Everett, Wa. who knows when the roach coach brings lunch outside those same big doors as the flying #1  777-9X leans against those same big doors from the inside, and that's just the same as being a plant forklift driver. The forklift knows when test equipment is moved closer to the aircraft and that's saying something big is happening. Test equipment is being added and light bulbs screwed in the first 7779X. Did I mention the windscreen washer has already been tested and the bugs on this aircraft have been removed?

What Hath Boeing Bought

Embraer has its own commercials pitching its product. However, if trained for the detail, Boeing has merged with an excellent product. It fills the Boeing lower capacity gap at many levels sans military.

Enjoy this advertising rendering as Embraer-Boeing goes forward with its added value.