Tag: planemaker (Page 5 of 5)

Boeing Speeds Up 787 Line To Output 14 Jets Per Month

January 30, 2019 / WIL BALDWIN

SEATTLE/PARIS (Reuters) – Boeing Co has started boosting 787 Dreamliner production to 14 jets a month from 12, Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg said on Wednesday, putting the U.S. planemaker within reach of a key target designed to boost cash and lower costs.

It expects to complete the increase in production in the second quarter, Muilenburg told analysts on a conference call.

“We have started transitioning to 14 a month in our factories and supply chains as we prepare to begin delivering at this higher rate,” Muilenburg said.

The comments follow an earlier Reuters report that Boeing had starting running 787 lines at a rate ready to support the higher output of 14 jets a month.

While factories are already absorbing parts at the new speed, it can take several months for new jetliners to work their way through final testing and delivery. Some gaps in production are typically introduced to smooth such changeovers.

Boeing has previously said it aims to reach the new production rate in 2019.

Boeing shares jumped on Wednesday as the world’s largest planemaker raised its profit and cash flow expectations for 2019 amid a boom in air travel.

(Reporting by Eric M. Johnson, Tim Hepher; Editing by Laurence Frost and Elaine Hardcastle)

Brazil Court Blocks Proposed Embraer-Boeing Tie-Up

December 6, 2018 / WIL BALDWIN

BRASILIA (Reuters) – A Brazilian federal court on Thursday granted an injunction blocking the proposed tie-up between planemakers Boeing Co (BA.N) and Embraer SA (EMBR3.SA), according to a court document seen by Reuters.

The decision, which can be appealed, forbids Embraer’s board of directors from signing the deal with Boeing. Boeing and Embraer did not immediately reply to requests for comment.

The legal action was brought by four congressmen with Brazil’s leftwing Workers Party, which is opposed to the deal.

The companies announced in July that Brazilian planemaker Embraer would sell 80 percent of its commercial aviation business to Boeing.

But the deal has stalled, partly because the Brazilian government, which has the power to veto important decisions at the planemaker, has been reluctant to give it a greenlight.

President Michel Temer said he would leave the decision to the future administration, which takes office Jan. 1. President-elect Jair Bolsonaro has said he is in favor of the deal.

(Reporting by Ricardo Brito; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and David Gregorio)

Image from www.embraer.com

Boeing Issues Advice For Pilots After Indonesia Crash

November 7, 2018 / WIL BALDWIN

ZHUHAI, China/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Boeing Co (BA.N) said on Wednesday it had issued a safety bulletin reminding pilots how to handle erroneous data from a key sensor in the wake of last week’s Indonesian jetliner crash.

The U.S. planemaker said investigators probing the Lion Air crash off the coast of Indonesia, in which all 189 on board were killed, had found that one of the “angle of attack” sensors on the brand-new Boeing 737 MAX jet had provided erroneous data.

Experts say the angle of attack is a crucial parameter that helps the aircraft’s computers understand whether its nose is too high relative to the current of air – a phenomenon that can throw the plane into an aerodynamic stall and make it fall.

Some modern aircraft have systems designed to correct the posture of the aircraft automatically to keep flying safely.

There are also procedures for pilots to follow in the event of missing data from damaged sensors on the fuselage, but it remains unclear how much time the crew of flight JT610 had to respond at the relatively low altitude of around 5,000 feet.

An angle of attack sensor had been changed by mechanics on the ground in Bali the day before the crash, Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT) said.

The captain and first officer flying from Bali to Jakarta the night before the crash had indicators displaying differences in angle of 20 degrees, KNKT said, but that flight landed safely despite the issues in the air.

COCKPIT PROCEDURE

Boeing said in a statement received at China’s largest air show in Zhuhai that its note to airlines underscored “existing flight crew procedures” designed to address circumstances where information coming into the cockpit from the sensors was wrong.

The Boeing 737 MAX has three such blade-shaped sensors. Erroneous readings can in some circumstances cause the 737 MAX to point the nose down sharply to keep air under the wings and avoid a stall, according to a person briefed on the matter.

A source said on condition of anonymity that the Boeing bulletin related only to the 737 MAX, of which there are just over 200 in service.

Service bulletins can be followed by mandatory airworthiness directives by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.

Boeing has delivered 219 737 MAX jets to customers globally, with 4,564 orders for jets yet to be delivered.

The Boeing 737 MAX is a more fuel-efficient version of the manufacturer’s best-selling single-aisle 737 series.

The Lion Air crash was the first involving the new version, which airlines introduced into service last year.

Indonesian authorities have downloaded information from the flight data recorder that showed a cockpit indicator on the Lion Air jet was damaged for its last four flights.

A search for the cockpit voice recorder, the second so-called “black box”, remains underway.

KNKT said it would attempt to reconstruct the jet’s last flight using Boeing simulators in Seattle. The angle of attack sensor replaced in Bali would be analysed at its place of manufacture in Chicago, the accident investigator said.

(Reporting by Tim Hepher and David Shepardson; Additional reporting by Cindy Silviana in Jakarta, Jamie Freed in Singapore and Allison Lampert in Montreal; Editing by Himani Sarkar)

Image from www.boeing.com

Airbus 2018 Delivery Goal Questioned By Analysts

October 29, 2018 / WIL BALDWIN

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Airbus (AIR.PA) will have to equal a record final quarter for deliveries if the European planemaker is going to meet its overall 2018 targets following a series of production setbacks.

Flight Ascend, a UK-based consultancy which monitors fleet developments worldwide, told aircraft investors in Hong Kong that Airbus may struggle to meet its target for 800 total aircraft deliveries this year.

And Bernstein analyst Douglas Harned said in a note that Airbus faced a shortfall in deliveries of its best-selling A320neo due to ongoing engine delays and operational problems.

The warnings came as Airbus prepares to post third-quarter earnings on Wednesday, when all eyes will be on whether it keeps its full-year target of 800 jet deliveries.

By end-September, Airbus was already facing a tough – though not unprecedented – challenge in meeting its full-year goal, a Reuters analysis of delivery data shows.

To meet the goal it would have to repeat exactly the record pattern of 2017, when 37 percent of the total number of annual deliveries were squeezed into the final quarter.

Airbus “usually pulls a rabbit out of the hat, so I wouldn’t bet against it,” a financial source familiar with the process said, adding delays had stressed the global aircraft industry.

For the first nine months, Airbus delivered 503 aircraft, leaving it once again with 37 percent of the targeted annual figure to accomplish in just three months.

The average achieved over that quarterly period in the past 10 years was 31 percent, according to a Reuters review of Airbus data.

Crucial to whether Airbus meets its goal is progress on best-selling single-aisle jets like the A320 and A321.

Commercial jets make up 76 percent of Airbus revenues, which are mostly paid on delivery, while aircraft lessors, who control around half the global fleet, lose $10,000 a day for a late A320-family jet, experts said.

Airbus does not publish separate delivery targets for single-aisle jets but Flight Ascend estimates this year’s target at around 630, leaving 76 a month to go in the last quarter.

“October numbers are sitting in the mid-50s which means it … is very challenging to reach the target for the end of year,” Ascend’s Ryan Hammacott told a Hong Kong seminar.

Earlier this month, Reuters reported Airbus faced new problems in producing the A321neo, a model central to its ambition to dominate the top end of the single-aisle market and thwart Boeing’s (BA.N) plans for a new mid-sized passenger jet.

Last week Rolls-Royce (RR.L) disclosed a shortfall in engine deliveries for the big A330neo.

Airbus planemaking president Guillame Faury last week confirmed Airbus was facing internal problems with the A321neo, but declined to discuss any impact on the delivery target.

Faury, who is the designated future Airbus chief executive has made stabilising deliveries a top priority.

Harned said stock markets may absorb a downgrade in the delivery target but would watch for any signs of stress in 2019.

(Reporting by Tim Hepher; Editing by Alexander Smith)

Image from http://www.airbus.com

Boeing Increases Chinese New Plane Forecast By 6.2%

September 12, 2018 / WIL BALDWIN

BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese airlines will buy 7,690 new planes worth $1.2 trillion over the next two decades to keep pace with booming consumer and business demand for air travel, Boeing Co said on Tuesday, raising a previous forecast.

The U.S. planemaker’s latest estimate for the period to 2037 is 6.2 percent higher than its previous prediction of 7,240 planes until 2036 made last year.

“The growth in China can be attributed to the country’s growing middle class, which has more than tripled in the last 10 years and is expected to double again in the next 10,” said Randy Tinseth, Boeing Commercial Airplanes’ vice president of marketing, in a statement.

Boeing and its European rival Airbus have been jostling to increase market share in China, the world’s fastest growing aviation market, with both opening assembly plants in the country.

The company has so far been mostly spared in an ongoing trade war between the United States and China. Large airplanes have been left out of China’s retaliatory tariff lists although U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to slap tariffs on virtually all Chinese imports into the United States.

Boeing also predicted that China will account for 18 percent of the world’s commercial airplane fleet by 2037, up from 15 percent currently, and forecast that the country will need over $1.5 trillion in commercial services to support its fleet.

Three quarters of the 7,690 plane orders over the next 20 years will likely be for single-aisle aircraft while China’s widebody fleet will require 1,620 new planes, tripling the country’s current widebody fleet size, it added.

(Reporting by Stella Qiu and Brenda Goh; Editing by Darren Schuettler and Muralikumar Anantharaman)

Image from www.boeing.com

Boeing proposes up to 90% stake in new Embraer

February 6, 2018 / WIL BALDWIN

BRASILIA (Reuters) – Boeing Co has presented a plan to Brazil’s government that would give it an 80 to 90 percent stake in a new venture encompassing Embraer SA’s commercial jet business, a Brazilian newspaper reported on Tuesday.

The plan Boeing presented to the government on Thursday would let it take over Embraer’s commercial operations via the creation of a new company, with defence operations remaining under the Brazilian planemaker’s control in order to meet government demands, Valor Economico reported, without citing a source.

Reuters previously reported on Friday that Boeing was seeking approval in Brasilia for a plan creating a new joint company excluding defence operations.

Valor reported that under the proposal Boeing would pay Embraer in cash when the commercial assets are transferred to the new company, with most of the proceeds then distributed to shareholders as dividends.

Boeing’s tie-up with Embraer, the world’s third-largest planemaker, would give it a leading share of the 70- to 130-seat market, meaning stiffer competition for Bombardier Inc and Airbus SE’s joint CSeries programme.

Embraer would retain the defence business that generates almost nothing in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation. Shareholders would also have 10 to 20 percent of the commercial activities transferred to the new company and be entitled to dividends.

The deal would maintain the government’s so-called golden share in Embraer, a former state enterprise, giving it veto power over certain strategic decisions, including Boeing’s current push for a tie-up.

The plan – if supported by the government and Embraer – could be presented to shareholders for approval as soon as the second quarter, the newspaper said. Further meetings between Boeing and the government will not occur until after the Carnival holiday, which ends next week, it reported.

Boeing and Embraer did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

(Reported by Jake Spring; Edited by Kirsten Donovan)