COMMENT
ightglobal.com 15-21 August 2017 | Flight International | 7
tion, lowering accommodation below the CS100’s
125-seat maximum.
But while the CSeries continues to prove itself,
Bombardier has yet to translate a year of successful op-
erations into sales momentum.
It remains mired at 360 orders for the type, with no
major new commitments for either variant since the
middle of 2016.
There also remains the tricky issue of an ongoing
trade dispute in the USA – another question mark
against the programme.
What Bombardier could use is another marquee
customer, but the wait for that milestone continues. ■I
ncrement by increment, Bombardier is chalking up
the operational achievements with its CSeries.
London City airport may not be the most awkward
in the world, but its steep approach profile and short
runway still presents a unique challenge to aircraft and
pilots alike.
So the start of revenue services to London’s down-
town hub with Swiss is another sign that the CS100 is a
highly versatile aircraft.
Of course, nothing is ever that simple, and the CS
does not fit perfectly within London City’s constraints.
Nonetheless, Swiss sees enough potential to serve
the site from the Alpine nation’s two largest cities.
And that includes consideration of a capacity restric- See This Week PCSerried ranks
Money talks
Boeing is gradually chipping away at the mountain of deferred development costs racked up
by the 787 programme, but its plans to avoid a repeat may falter on supply chain push-backers to trade lower costs for additional volumes. The
second is that the supply chain has no alternative but
to yield to Boeing’s cost pressure.
With backlogs measured in years across the indus-
try, the outlook for commercial demand appears
strong. But how suppliers respond to Boeing’s price
pleas is another matter.
Many companies have found a way to balance
Boeing’s demands with their own business plans. Spir-
it AeroSystems, for example, is the latest to agree long-
term pricing with the airframer.
But there are other signs that suppliers are pushing
back. Indeed, Boeing’s cost pressures are mainly
driven by the industry consolidation of the past two
decades that has eroded competition throughout the
supply chain.
As rumours stir of more mergers and acquisitions –
such as last week’s report of a United Technologies
bid for Rockwell Collins – the industry might have
found a way to dig in its heels. ■I
f industry forecasts are reliable, there are about
$5-6 trillion in aircraft deals available for the taking
over the next 20 years, but the number that is reshaping
the industry right now is a more modest $28.6 billion.
That represents the peak of Boeing’s deferred costs
on the 787 programme and a number the company
must surmount for the widebody to break even.
Although doubts have lingered that the 787 will ever
get there, a faint light now flickers at the end of this
particular tunnel – but it remains distant. It may take
Boeing more than a decade of continuous production
at the fastest rate in widebody history for the 787 to
achieve profitability.
In an industry that expects to produce one new
clean-sheet aircraft design once every 10-15 years, no
company can survive such timescales for return on in-
vestment for long. Indeed, the fact that Boeing is enjoy-
ing a stock market resurgence is driven by another his-
toric anomaly: an uninterrupted, 15-year growth in
annual aircraft deliveries.So it is not surprising to see Boeing attempting to
upend not only its own business, but also the structure
of the supply chain: avoiding another 787-sized deba-
cle seems to be driving its entire strategy.
But underpinning that move are two assumptions
that will surely be tested before Boeing’s next clean-
sheet aircraft is ready to enter service.
First is that demand for commercial aircraft will con-
tinue its long-term upward trajectory, allowing suppli- See This Week PClimbing now?
AirTeamImagesBoeing’s cost pressures are mainly
driven by industry consolidation
seen over the past two decades
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