AirInsight's podcasts

The AirInsight team does a review of the merger news today and comes away underwhelmed. How does this deal make sense? Wall Street gets to cash out - but who else wins? The labor buy in is uncertain. There does not seem to be any serious cost cutting; there is talk of keeping all the hubs, but this may be posturing.

The AirInsight Team discussed today's conference call with Flightblogger Jon Ostrower. Overall our assessment is that the call went well and that Boeing seems better placed in terms of knowing where the problems lie and how to overcome them.

Today we had a discussion about the news that the 787 seems to have run into a design issue with the wing box. As part of this discussion, we managed to speak with Jon Ostrower who discovered some detailed information (yet to be confirmed by Boeing) that provides some background to what might be happening. It appears Boeing is facing more difficulties with its novel airplane. With so much complexity in its supply chain and design, Boeing's engineers must be burning the midnight oil.

Scott Hamilton and Addison Schonland discuss the news of the tanker selection after the selection. Boeing has filed its protest. NG/EADS have now vastly increased the number of jobs their program will create. There are allegations of McCain lobbyists helping EADS. So who knew what and when? The whole process is becoming messy and the original need - helping those in harm's way do a better job with new tools is all but forgotten.

Scott Hamilton and Addison Schonland discuss the news about Southwest Airlines. Does this news indicate deeper issues within the airline? The two of us hold different views of this highly influential and market leading airline.

Scott Hamilton and Addison Schonland review the aftermath of Friday's stunning award of the tanker contract to the Northrop Grumman/EADS team.

Scott Hamilton and Addison Schonland discuss this possible merger with an "unknown" analyst who needs to stay unnamed for professional reasons. The combining of the fleets at these two airlines is going to be a tough job. Among the widebodies we see the A330 doing well, but the 787, 777 is an open question. The 744's likely become freighters - and does this give the A380 an edge over a the 747-8? Among narrowbodies - what happens to the A320 and 737s? They are both large sub-fleets - which one replaces the MD80s? Does Bombardier rejoice as this airline could offer a huge launch order for the CSeries? For that matter is Embraer out of the picture? This fleet planner nightmare will also be keeping up the sales teams at the OEMs for weeks once a merger is announced. If a merger gets announced.

After the 787 delay announcement we (AirInsight and guest Jon Ostrower) listened into the conference call. Here is our take on this call - overall Boeing's handling of the call was better than the previous call is our view. We were particularly impressed with Pat Shanahan's detailed tracking of the pieces and parts for each of the next critical steps. This was a highlight of the call for us. Overall Boeing seems to be taking a much more deliberate approach now and is very aware of the A380 delay history. We think this call went better than expected.

We do a quick review of the news just released (http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/080116/aqw079.html?.v=33) about the 787 delay. More to follow after the conference call. Our guest is Flightblogger Jon Ostrower.

The WSJ is reporting another delay in the 787 program (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120042551223592017.html?mod=hps_us_whats_news). This is not good news for Boeing. Apparently Boeing will announce the news tomorrow. Over the weekend customers were notified - so the news started to leak. The news has already impacted Boeing's stock price. Without any good news, Boeing's share price is likely to fall again. Ouch.

News has just come out that Airbus has a big announcement set for Monday. Apparently Airbus is considering moving the A330 program to the USA. This is huge news as the A330 program is Airbus' most successful widebody program. It is a very important statement by Airbus. It also demonstrates the value of the USAF tanker program - if the KC-30 does not win anything the whole deal could fall apart.

The AirInsight team speaks with Scott McCartney, journalist for the Wall Street Journal and whose column “The Middle Seat” has become famous. We discuss the news of Delta’s interest in starting negotiations with both Northwest and United about mergers. Scott McCartney thinks that United is a good choice and does not see Northwest as the "natural" first choice. We also review briefly the green movement in the US.

Mark Dunkerley, President & CEO of Hawaiian Airlines, discusses his airline's recent fleet renewal process - selecting Airbus over Boeing. He also explains the engine selection process; new routes for the fleet and the consideration of new narrow body planes over the next two years. This podcast confirms the race between Boeing's 787 and the Airbus 350 is not as straightforward as many think.

Ernie Arvai, Addison Schonland and Erkan Pinar discuss the breaking news about the stake Lufthansa has or is taking in JetBlue.

The AirInsight team reviews news that Airbus' senior executives believe the company is facing a "life threatening" threat from a weaker US dollar. Today Airbus also announced a 160 plane order from China - now there's a nice threat. Boeing's Scott Carson was quoted as talking of a 2015 (give or take) time frame for the 737RS. This news clearly does add pressure to Airbus' own A320 replacement plans. These items create an intriguing confluence in terms of impacts on Airbus.

We speak with Ron Kuhlmann, editor in chief of the Unisys Scorecard. Sign up at www.unisys.com/transportation. Ron explains why the e-commerce environment is so challenging for legacy airlines - they cannot show their advantages to customers because the booking systems do not allow them to demonstrate their better value proposition. This is a novel way to looking a how legacies are being beaten by LCCs. If a legacy carrier costs only 10% more but gives you meals, space and real ambiance, why not fly it? The problem is that in the current booking systems you only see the 10% price difference - you never know about the other side of the deal - unless you're an industry insider.

The AirInsight team invited Jon Ostrower from Flightblogger to discuss stories both sources put out on the 787-10. Our podcast is based on Scott Carson from Boeing's comments in Dubai that airlines were approaching them for a 380-425 seater 787. This really big jump in the plane's potential size impacts not only Boeing's premier 777-300ER program, it even impacts the 747i.

The AirInsight team takes a quick look at the news of a possible A380-900 - the team likes this plane more than the -800 and wonders how Boeing will respond. We discuss Southwest's new boarding process and its new fare structure. Overall it Southwests new fares seem to be a little out of whack with the airline's image - but then they need to money, don't they?

The AirInsight team reviews the show and its impact. The news was amazing in terms of order sizes.

Scott Hamilton and Addison Schonland speak with Puget Sound Business Journal correspondent Stephen Wilhelm who published a story about the FAA's Seattle office's involvement in the 787 flight test program.

News came out today that a hedge fund is interested in seeing these two airlines join forces. The fund has a clear view - it wants out - and who can blame them? But what about the rest of the deal? The people, the companies? We think this deal is a non-starter.

Peter Pae is the aerospace correspondent for the LA Times and provides a sometimes funny, but overall great review, of his flight on Singapore Airlines' A380. The plane left him with distinct impressions - it is remarkably quiet and very comfortable. Listeners will especially notice his comments about switching from the new A380 to a new 777-300ER.

The AirInsight team spoke with Airbus' North America Chairman after he delivered a speech today at the Washington DC Press Club. Allan's speech was titled "My Country, My Company, My Competitor". It was a very good speech and he made interesting points.

The AirInsight Team reviews today's Vought analyst call and the impact for further delays in the Boeing 787 program. The need for Boeing to send significant resources to Vought has our team wondering about the downstream implications on further delays - indeed we expect there are likely to be more. And its not just the 787, the 747-8 program might be impacted also.

In a remarkable speech given by Mike Bair, former head of the 787 program, and detailed by Dominic Gates at the Seattle Times (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/boeingaerospace/2003986894_bair01.html) you get to hear language you might not have expected to hear from Boeing. It was a tough speech and will throw buckets of cold water on many firms in the 787 supply chain. This was no the usual "rah rah 787" speech. The Air Insight team gives its take on what this may mean for Boeing, its suppliers and the 787 program.

Post Boeing's conference call on the 787 delay, Richard Aboulafia and Addison Schonland review the call.

The AirInsight team speaks with Richard Aboulafia about the just announced delay in the 787 program.

Ernie Arvai discusses the issues facing SAS and Bombardier with the grounding of the Q400 turboprop. Bombardier told airlines to ground 60 of its Q400s.

Unfortunately our regular podcast solution collapsed on us today and we had to resort to telephone conferencing. The sound is not what we typically produce - our apologies. Ernie Arvai discusses air fares and the softening of these looking forward, particularly in the North Atlantic market. Scott Hamilton reviews the new life in the Boeing 757 and 767 programs, the impact of which is being in the cargo market. Addison Schonland reviews the US DOT on-time data, finding some unpleasant surprises in terms of total "wasted" hours.

Ernie Arvai, Scott Hamilton and Addison Schonland discuss the Boeing conference call on September 5, 2007

Scott Hamilton & Addison Schonland review the week's aviation news.