Plane Nation

Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. said Friday it had begun assembling the first
major part of Boeing Co.’s new 787 airplane, which is scheduled to enter
service in 2008. The Japanese company is building the center wing
section of the airplane at a new factory in Handa, Japan. The part will
then be sent to Charleston, S.C., where it will be joined by other parts
before being shipped on to the 787’s final assembly site in Everett, north
of Seattle.

Emirates has begun discussions with Airbus on replacing the 20 A340-600 aircraft ordered in 2003 with more A380s or A350s. The A340-600s had been ordered
as part of its $19.1 billion fleet acquisition programme. “Emirates and Airbus are in negotiations to replace the A340-600 with additional A380s and a number of
the new A350s,” Habib Fakih, president of Airbus Middle East, told Gulf News. The 20 A340-600s are valued at more than $5 billion at list prices. Confirming this,
an Emirates spokesperson told Gulf News, “Emirates confirms that it is in discussions with Airbus for future aircraft requirements,” without giving further details.
Value Fakih, however, said Emirates

I’ve heard that the competition is complaining that Boeing is out there
“grossly exaggerating” the weight differences between the A380 freighter
and the new 747-8F - to make the case that the 747-8 freighter is more
efficient than their A380F. Well, okay, yes we do say their airplane is
heavier. And my Airbus counterparts would have you believe this is public
relations “smoke and mirrors.” But it’s simple arithmetic
we’re talking about here. I mean, why would you want to buy an
airplane that hauls 74 tonnes more weight on every trip, just so you can
have the capability to carry 7 tonnes more revenue payload? That’s right,
every

Today we read in FI of the A320E, a premeptive strike against Boeing’s
737 replacement. Unlike the case of the 787, Airbus thinks by
announcing their plane first it secures first mover advantage. Offering ~
5% improvement in fuel burn, this plane is thought (by Mr. Leahy) to
demonstrate that any new 737 offering ~10% better fuel burn is not
attractive enough. The following chart illustrates where Airbus expects
improvements.Well, its quite a move. Especially after last week. See, the
thing is, Airbus is reacting to the yet to be announced 737 replacement.
And this does not look good. It looks kind of lame actually. Mr

NAGOYA, Japan — For Boeing’s Everett engineers working on the
company’s first all-new commercial jetliner in more than a decade,
the dream begins here. PHOTO GALLERY Boeing Dreamliner
assembly In this Japanese industrial city far from The Boeing Co.’s
Puget Sound roots, in a factory built just for the 787 Dreamliner, Fuji
Heavy Industries has completed the first large composite section that will
go on the first 787 to fly next year. Measuring 17.4 feet long by 19 feet
wide, the composite structure is the lower skin of the center wing box, a
critical section of the jet where the 787 wings will be attached. The

General Electric yesterday estimated it could cost the company up to $1
billion to design a new engine to power the potential next iteration of the
Airbus A350, and the company is still weighing whether it wants to make
the significant investment. GE-Aviation CEO Scott Donnelly said on the
sidelines of a Wings Club speech in New York that GE was in talks with
Airbus about the A350 and a possible new engine, but that no decision
had been made. He said GE “would love to be on the plane,” but he had
to weigh that desire against the large economic investment in a new
powerplant. Donnelly said the motor on the new engine would

Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 series is only engine currently offerable to
customers for revamped widebody twinjet family Airbus is trying to
convince General Electric to develop an engine that it can offer on the
revamped A350 family, which is now being proposed to potential
customers powered only by versions of the Rolls-Royce Trent 1000
engine. Airbus is declining to confirm details of its studies into the revised
family ahead of next month’s Farnborough air show, at which time it
hopes to “clear up the confusion” surrounding the status of the new
twinjet, says the company’s chief operating officer customers John
Leahy. However, he tells Flight International that Airbus is “a little
disappointed with GE’s response” to

The Government of Qatar maybe the first customer for the new passenger version of the Boeing 747-8I (Intercontinental). The rumor is that the aircraft will be configured in a VIP configuration.
In fact, Boeing did not even make an announcement. It simply added the order for the one plane to information about jetliner [...]

Boeing is studying the possibility of lengthening its 747-8 Intercontinental
passenger aircraft in response to requests from some airlines for additional
capacity. Interest is coming primarily from Asian carriers that are also
evaluating the Airbus A380, which nominally seats 555 passengers in
three classes, compared with 450 for the 747-8I, say industry sources.
Commenting on the potential for increasing the -8I’s capacity, Boeing
says: “We are having detailed discussions in terms of both the aircraft
and the potential business deal, with a lot of the large global operators
around the world that today operate 747-400s. The specifics on the 747-
8 Intercontinental will not be finalised until firm configuration is reached.”

International Lease Finance Corp., the world’s biggest aircraft-
leasing company, may cancel its $3 billion order for Airbus SAS’s
A380 after the planemaker delayed delivery of the jets for a second time.
Airbus told International Lease the order for 10 of the 555- seat planes will
now be 12 to 14 months later than the original agreement, Los Angeles-
based International Lease Chief Executive Officer Steven Udvar-Hazy
said in an interview. He said the contract lets his company scrap the deal
without penalties after a six-month delay. “We could cancel and are
considering canceling all or some of our A380 order,’’ he
said in a telephone interview yesterday. “We are