kevin5345179 wrote:

Polot wrote:

In the end you have to be careful about falling into the trap of assuming that the A330 will always be cheaper than the 787, just because it is older/in production longer. The A330 is using very different materials than the 787s, and built in a very different manner. Boeing did screw up initial 787 program execution, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that Boeing’s beliefs about the 787’s potential production costs are unsound. They could still be valid, it is just taking Boeing longer to realize their production cost goals than they thought at program launch.

It is entirely feasible that at some point the 787 will be at about parity with the A330 in terms of production costs, or maybe even slightly cheaper. It is possible that day is closer than many initially realized due to Boeing’s aggressiveness towards cutting costs (squeezing suppliers, increasing rate, etc) over the past couple of years. Remember that the 787 is not a brand new aircraft anymore. Boeing have built ~650 of them; they have some experience with the type, more than many other widebody programs.

I wonder how does the material cost compare. After all, 787 has a lot more composite material and those material do cost more. Regardless the techniques for building the plane, the material cost won't go away ...
Anyways, I think the bigger pricing issue for 787 is whether Boeing wants to do something with their deferred cost. At the current rate, I don't think they can zero the deferred cost when the current backlogs are delivered.

Material costs won’t go away, but as composites become more commonplace their cost decreases. There will eventually be a time where it will be more expensive to make a plane out of aluminum rather than composites, but that will likely be well after the A330 and 787 programs are dead (at least in their current iterations). It will happen with structures like wings first.

kevin5345179 wrote:

Anyways, I think the bigger pricing issue for 787 is whether Boeing wants to do something with their deferred cost. At the current rate, I don't think they can zero the deferred cost when the current backlogs are delivered.

So, worst case many years from now they take a write down of whatever remains in the unsold portion of the accounting block if it becomes likely that some frames in the block will not be sold. Yet I think anyone who's watching realizes we're far far far away from the end of the 787 program, and every time they sell another block of 100 of so frames they'll increase the accounting block which will decrease the per-frame contribution to deferred cost.

kevin5345179 wrote:

I wonder how does the material cost compare. After all, 787 has a lot more composite material and those material do cost more. Regardless the techniques for building the plane, the material cost won't go away ...
Anyways, I think the bigger pricing issue for 787 is whether Boeing wants to do something with their deferred cost. At the current rate, I don't think they can zero the deferred cost when the current backlogs are delivered.

I can buy aerospace grade titanium for $30 a kg. So even if the 787 was entirely made out of Titanium the raw material cost would be only $3 million.

Raw material cost would be lucky to be 1-2% of the actual sale price. The majority of it is the labour cost and supplier profit margin. So even if the raw material cost of the 787 was double it could still be built way cheaper if the labour cost is less.

I could see the carbon design requiring far less assembly labour.

I agree with bigjku that the cost to make a single 787-9 is now close to parity to a A330-900. 2-3 years ago that wouldn't have been true, the 787 would have been much more expensive to build.

Stitch wrote:

JamesCousins wrote:

Good point, the competitor isn't that great, although if the A320neo family didn't work really well for airlines Airbus would have been heavily pressured to peruse a new design. There's good reason it's sold very well...

MAX has sold 61% as many frames as the NG in 35% of the time so it may not be "great", but it certainly isn't "bad".

It's pretty clear all of the latest-generation narrowbody and widebody frames are benefitting strongly from airline fears of a return to high fuel prices, just as they benefitted strongly when fuel prices were high.

Or risk losing cheap capital to fund these purchases.

Elementalism wrote:

Or risk losing cheap capital to fund these purchases.

That too, though some are using that cheap capital to fund current generation frames (A320/A330ceo, 737NG, 777-300ER).

I think the A330 will be fine. There is still a decent backlog of combined CEO and NEO orders, and there are a lot of new/er A330s currently in service. I don't think the NEO will be anywhere close to being as successful as the CEO is, but shouldn't be expected anyways. The replacement cycle is still a little ways out yet though. Even though the -800 has no orders, I think it could still be the longest running variant in production as a Freighter and Tanker. Airbus may just have a sales target to recoup the test/development costs of the NEO and possibly it's replacement as or at least bridge the gap to it's replacement. A A350-700 and resurrection of the -800 (as a stretch of the -700, as opposed to a shrink of the -900) might be worth considering now though.

Polot wrote:

It is entirely feasible that at some point the 787 will be at about parity with the A330 in terms of production costs, or maybe even slightly cheaper. It is possible that day is closer than many initially realized due to Boeing’s aggressiveness towards cutting costs (squeezing suppliers, increasing rate, etc) over the past couple of years. Remember that the 787 is not a brand new aircraft anymore. Boeing have built ~650 of them; they have some experience with the type, more than many other widebody programs.

Maybe, but I believe that time has yet to come. The 787 engines alone are much expensive than the Trent 700, for example. In addition to that, while the 787 rate runs at 12 per month, it's split across two factories. So there is overhead. PAE and CHS run at rate 6 each. It would be interesting to know the production cost for each factory.

KarelXWB wrote:

Polot wrote:

It is entirely feasible that at some point the 787 will be at about parity with the A330 in terms of production costs, or maybe even slightly cheaper. It is possible that day is closer than many initially realized due to Boeing’s aggressiveness towards cutting costs (squeezing suppliers, increasing rate, etc) over the past couple of years. Remember that the 787 is not a brand new aircraft anymore. Boeing have built ~650 of them; they have some experience with the type, more than many other widebody programs.

Maybe, but I believe that time has yet to come. The 787 engines alone are much expensive than the Trent 700, for example. In addition to that, while the 787 rate runs at 12 per month, it's split across two factories. So there is overhead. PAE and CHS run at rate 6 each. It would be interesting to know the production cost for each factory.

Trent 7000 has a list price of

KarelXWB wrote:

Polot wrote:

It is entirely feasible that at some point the 787 will be at about parity with the A330 in terms of production costs, or maybe even slightly cheaper. It is possible that day is closer than many initially realized due to Boeing’s aggressiveness towards cutting costs (squeezing suppliers, increasing rate, etc) over the past couple of years. Remember that the 787 is not a brand new aircraft anymore. Boeing have built ~650 of them; they have some experience with the type, more than many other widebody programs.

Maybe, but I believe that time has yet to come. The 787 engines alone are much expensive than the Trent 700, for example. In addition to that, while the 787 rate runs at 12 per month, it's split across two factories. So there is overhead. PAE and CHS run at rate 6 each. It would be interesting to know the production cost for each factory.

Trent 7000 has a list price of $37.9 million. GEnX is $28.7 million. Those are list prices. The Trent 1000 has a list price basically the same as the 7000 last time I looked. Yes the 700 is cheaper but not relevant goinrg forward.

bigjku wrote:

Here is the source link.

https://airwaysmag.com/industry/analysi ... ilability/

Feel free to critique their aaaumptions and go ahead and adjust for fuel cost being what it is today. But the fundamental question is this. Is there any data point that would suggest an A330neo would be cheaper than what Airbus thought they could make them for in 2014?

The implied production cost in that article is $96 million or so for an A330neo at a production rate somewhere between 8-10 as that is what Airbus pitched at the time. Rate is now lower.

For Boeing we have the following data points. There is the much debated Hawaii sale at $115 million which implies a production cost in the $90’s somewhere is what Boeing expects.

Another data point would be market value:

Aircraft Values, And Lease Pricing

In 2017 Boeing sold new 787-9s for ~ $147 million, while a brand new A330-300 sold for $100 million. That's a > 40% difference right there.

If we assume a 15% margin, that means production costs are about $85 million and $125 respectively.

Another data point would be market intelligence from Leeham that suggested Airbus sold brand new A330-200s at $80 million while making a profit, thus production costs must be lower. That was at rate 8 however, couple years ago.

I know Airbus charges at least 10% premium on the A330neo, thus that would put the A330-900 at $110 million at minimum. However, production cost would be similar to the A330ceo as the airframe and assembly process is basically the same. Boeing has a large gap to fill, although they don't have to match A330 production cost if they believe the 787 is a better product and warrants the higher price (note however that Boeing admits it's under price pressure from Airbus and describes every RFP as a dog fight).

Revelation wrote:

bigjku wrote:

I also think we have to acknowledge the possibility that the original manufacturing savings promise of the 787 methods are finally being realized. If that is the case it’s far worse for Airbus than any short term issue.

It's interesting how much of a.net rejected much of the Leeham HA report, and is now willing to admit he had the inside track on HA dropping A338 and picking up 789, but still not really taking in his rationale ( 787 can price aggressively due to earlier investments at reducing production cost, squeezing of subcontractors to reduce their prices, increasing production rate allowing fixed cost to be amortized across more production etc).

Regarding the first argument, Boeing's original 787 promise of assembling an 787 in just 3 days hasn't materialized, and never will, because it's physically impossible with current infrastructure.

Regarding the second argument, I'm not buying the idea that Boeing needs to sell its 290-seat 787-9 for the price of a 240-seat A330-800 (or 787-8 if it matters) in order to be competitive. It would also undermine the financial market and haunt them in the future when resale value comes into play.

I still believe engine offers can make or break an airplane deal. This has been pointed out by airline executives many times before.

Revelation wrote:

WIederling wrote:

bigjku wrote:

I also think we have to acknowledge the possibility that the original manufacturing savings promise of the 787 methods are finally being realized. If that is the case it’s far worse for Airbus than any short term issue.

That is a bit far fetched to go from price dumping and a never before seen WB production rate
to "original manufacturing savings promise of the 787 methods are finally being realized"

... and bookkeeping gyrations won't expose this either way in the near to middle future.

Right on cue...

I think I need to morph myself back to 1940, steal the enigma machine and decode this message before I can reply.

KarelXWB wrote:

bigjku wrote:

Here is the source link.

https://airwaysmag.com/industry/analysi ... ilability/

Feel free to critique their aaaumptions and go ahead and adjust for fuel cost being what it is today. But the fundamental question is this. Is there any data point that would suggest an A330neo would be cheaper than what Airbus thought they could make them for in 2014?

The implied production cost in that article is $96 million or so for an A330neo at a production rate somewhere between 8-10 as that is what Airbus pitched at the time. Rate is now lower.

For Boeing we have the following data points. There is the much debated Hawaii sale at $115 million which implies a production cost in the $90’s somewhere is what Boeing expects.

Another data point would be market value:

Aircraft Values, And Lease Pricing

In 2017 Boeing sold new 787-9s for ~ $147 million, while a brand new A330-300 sold for $100 million. That's a > 40% difference right there.

If we assume a 15% margin, that means production costs are about $85 million and $125 respectively.

Another data point would be market intelligence from Leeham that suggested Airbus sold brand new A330-200s at $80 million while making a profit, thus production costs must be lower. That was at rate 8 however, couple years ago.

I know Airbus charges at least 10% premium on the A330neo, thus that would put the A330-900 at $110 million at minimum. However, production cost would be similar to the A330ceo as the airframe and assembly process is basically the same. Boeing has a large gap to fill, although they don't have to match A330 production cost if they believe the 787 is a better product and warrants the higher price (note however that Boeing admits it's under price pressure from Airbus and describes every RFP as a dog fight).

The 200 and 300 aren’t really what we were talking about. The NEO has another $30 million with of engines at list price hanging on the CEO. Discount that 50% if you want but if $80 million turned a bit of a profit on a -200 then if you add cost to get to a -300 size and the new engines we are in the $90 millions somewhere right?

As for the 787 I am happy to use your number as the average sales price. In that case your margin can’t be right for the 787 based on what we know accounting wise. As I pointed out (can’t see back right now where I am at) Boeing posted a reduction to deferred production and 787 tooling of $20 some million a frame in 2017. That means the profit was at minimum that which works to a 13% margin. Plus the accounting block has a built in profit margin that can’t be applied to the reduction but hits the bottom line. If we are conservative and assume that was 10% then our cash cost must be around $113 million a plane.

Boeing just signed major cost cutting deals with Spirit, Mitsubishi and others in late 2016 for going forward pricing. I think it’s far more likely that pricing for these two products is within $10 million than most think.

KarelXWB wrote:

Revelation wrote:

bigjku wrote:

I also think we have to acknowledge the possibility that the original manufacturing savings promise of the 787 methods are finally being realized. If that is the case it’s far worse for Airbus than any short term issue.

It's interesting how much of a.net rejected much of the Leeham HA report, and is now willing to admit he had the inside track on HA dropping A338 and picking up 789, but still not really taking in his rationale ( 787 can price aggressively due to earlier investments at reducing production cost, squeezing of subcontractors to reduce their prices, increasing production rate allowing fixed cost to be amortized across more production etc).

Regarding the first argument, Boeing's original 787 promise of assembling an 787 in just 3 days hasn't materialized, and never will, because it's physically impossible with current infrastructure.

I know you follow things very closely (because you catch many mistakes in posts here, including some of mine) so I'm surprised by this response.

You are off in two ways;
a) That's not what Boeing said with regard to production rate
b) There's more to "earlier investments at reducing production cost" than just a high production rate

For (a) what they said (using my simplified language) that an assembled jet would leave the production line every three days. That's not the same as saying one jet would be assembled in three days. They were talking bandwidth, you were thinking latency. The latency target (i.e. time from major assemblies to be put into first set of tools till rolling out the production line door) before the 1st one was assembled was 11 days (and didn't include other things outside the FAL such as painting). I have no idea if they've hit that or not. It'd be interesting to know if anyone is tracking that.

For (b) there's more to the "earlier investments at reducing production cost" than just getting a high production rate. Most famous example was use of mandrels so that stingers were co-cured with the skin and one entire set of operations was eliminated. Here's an interesting article on this topic: https://www.compositesworld.com/article ... 787-update

Regarding the second argument, I'm not buying the idea that Boeing needs to sell its 290-seat 787-9 for the price of a 240-seat A330-800 (or 787-8 if it matters) in order to be competitive. It would also undermine the financial market and haunt them in the future when resale value comes into play.

It's strange to read here how Boeing needs to amortize those often-discussed deferred production costs across a huge number of frames yet when they get aggressive on price to move more frames and increase production rate people don't understand what they are doing.

I'm also not sure they normalize price by dividing by seat count. Boeing just added 10 frames to its backlog and took away 6 from Airbus. That's more important than considering price per seat. I'm pretty confident they made an acceptable profit doing so ( cue the a.net member who keeps telling us the Boeing board has clamped down and won't allow loss making deals ).

The bottom line is they've shown that they can be aggressive on price at least one case, and that may be the start of a trend now that they have more production slots to fill and a lot better understanding of their production costs.

So from all programs Airbus is seeing some good and plenty of bad going forward:

A320/321neo - the cash cow but GTF engine issues keep popping.
A330-800/900neo - the smaller sibling is dead on arrival, larger one still not selling as expected due to simply being too large, too heavy for intended uses and somewhat less-optimised for shorter routes.
A350-900 - performing and selling well
A350-1000 - big expectations but not too many orders
A380 - after yesterday's words by LH dismissing A380's future in their fleet; the program is a huge question mark and may not be continued for long unless Airbus finds new interest.

I think Airbus needs a big re-think of its entire product line:
New short haul workhorse (let's call it A360) to replace A320 series, sized-up from original series to accommodate larger derivatives past A321 while keeping away from A318/319 altogether saving that size for CSeries. Smallest member to be a slightly longer A320.
New medium to long haul A330 replacement (let's call it A370) retaining a similarly optimizer cross-section but slimmed-down a bit to cover the lower capacity medum and long-haul markets. Regionally-optimizer versions to allow for higher capacity short/medium haul operations with a choice of 2 wings: one optimizer for economic operations and an ULR-optimized wing if range is needed.
A new long hauler to improve on A350 (let's call it A390) with a wider fuselage and more geared toward 777-sizes. Much needed as Airbus may not keep A380 as their largest offering and A350 while a wonderful performer today has limited growth potential size-wise to occupy the largest segment of Airbus offering sans A380.

.

Swadian wrote:

mjoelnir wrote:

Revelation wrote:

Seems dubious to me.

The A332 actually is more efficient on short sectors and the buyers might be counting on that efficiency. They also may be wanting commonality for spare parts (especially engines) that A330neo can't provide.

The NEO will cost more. Perhaps Airbus would eat the cost difference just to get some A338s into service, perhaps not.

The advantage of the A330ceo over the A330neo on short sectors, was based on estimates done 2014. Some things have changed since than. The weight increase is less than first estimated, most likely the difference of the engines only, not more than 4t. Airbus offers a 6t higher MZFW on both neo versions. The A330-800 grows to 176t and the A330-900 grows to 181t. That means slightly higher max payload on the A330neo than the ceo instead the other way round. The fuel burn of at least on the A330-900 beats planed specs. So the advantage attributed to the A330ceo on short routes should be rather limited to far shorter trips than anticipated in 2014, or perhaps no advantage at all.

On the other hand, if one doesn't need the range, why use A338 instead of A339 at all?

Oh wait, that's why the A338 has 0 orders.

I would assume just like ATR42 there are still operators that want something smaller?

sofianec wrote:

New short haul workhorse (let's call it A360) to replace A320 series, sized-up from original series to accommodate larger derivatives past A321 while keeping away from A318/319 altogether saving that size for CSeries. Smallest member to be a slightly longer A320.

The A320 and A321 still have a lot of life left in them.

An A322 might be needed to carry about 260-270 pax in a single class configuration. This should feature a new CFRP wingbox and wing (optimised for longer range) and new 40+K lbs thrust class engines. Can PW and LEAP scale up?

sofianec wrote:

New medium to long haul A330 replacement (let's call it A370) retaining a similarly optimizer cross-section but slimmed-down a bit to cover the lower capacity medum and long-haul markets. Regionally-optimizer versions to allow for higher capacity short/medium haul operations with a choice of 2 wings: one optimizer for economic operations and an ULR-optimized wing if range is needed.

The A330 Neo will be in production for at least another 5 years, maybe 10.

The aircraft is old tech and it may be better to optimise the A350 than redesign an A330.

sofianec wrote:

A new long hauler to improve on A350 (let's call it A390) with a wider fuselage and more geared toward 777-sizes. Much needed as Airbus may not keep A380 as their largest offering and A350 while a wonderful performer today has limited growth potential size-wise to occupy the largest segment of Airbus offering sans A380..

Looking at the demand of the A350-1000 and B777-9, it would be foolish for more money to be poured into large and very large bodies. Airlines in the US prefer frequencies and not big capacity aircraft. Elsewhere in the world, more point to point routes from secondary airports mean that high capacity aircraft is not really needed. As such, the sweet spot is where the A359/B789 sits - around 280-330 pax.

Airbus is a public listed company - it has shareholders to satisfy. Having so many new aircraft programmes will be a huge drain on resources. Sometimes, markets change and we got to give it time. Remember, many airlines thought that they don't need the 757 anymore. Yet, 10 years after production has ended, they are clamouring for the 757 again!

Airbus need not panic too much if orders dry up. Instead, they should try to understand the airlines' concerns and maybe help them to understand that producing a new aircraft family every five years will make them very expensive! A long production run (like the A320/330, B737/747) will give better economics!

RJMAZ wrote:

kevin5345179 wrote:

I wonder how does the material cost compare. After all, 787 has a lot more composite material and those material do cost more. Regardless the techniques for building the plane, the material cost won't go away ...
Anyways, I think the bigger pricing issue for 787 is whether Boeing wants to do something with their deferred cost. At the current rate, I don't think they can zero the deferred cost when the current backlogs are delivered.

I can buy aerospace grade titanium for $30 a kg. So even if the 787 was entirely made out of Titanium the raw material cost would be only $3 million.

Raw material cost would be lucky to be 1-2% of the actual sale price. The majority of it is the labour cost and supplier profit margin. So even if the raw material cost of the 787 was double it could still be built way cheaper if the labour cost is less.

I could see the carbon design requiring far less assembly labour.

I agree with bigjku that the cost to make a single 787-9 is now close to parity to a A330-900. 2-3 years ago that wouldn't have been true, the 787 would have been much more expensive to build.

Material is cheap. I routinely handle $5,000 assemblies with $22 of material.

Lightsaber

Not sure if this mentioned earlier but its worthy considering the troubles of the A330neo programme, in particular the A330-800. Would it be possible for Airbus to introduce a much lower MTOW version of the A330-800 such as deactivating the central fuel tank, dropping the fuel capacity down to 25,740 gallons? Minus the central fuel tank, the A330-800 range would be considerably lower than the 7500 nm range given for the 242 tonne version. Sounds like a rather simple solution for a MoM aircraft as it has become apparent Airbus is marketing this aircraft as the MoM aircraft, even though it is too much plane, like the 787-8.

DeSpringbokke wrote:

Not sure if this mentioned earlier but its worthy considering the troubles of the A330neo programme, in particular the A330-800. Would it be possible for Airbus to introduce a much lower MTOW version of the A330-800 such as deactivating the central fuel tank, dropping the fuel capacity down to 25,740 gallons? Minus the central fuel tank, the A330-800 range would be considerably lower than the 7500 nm range given for the 242 tonne version. Sounds like a rather simple solution for a MoM aircraft as it has become apparent Airbus is marketing this aircraft as the MoM aircraft, even though it is too much plane, like the 787-8.

That would never work. You can't just reduce maximum takeoff weight on paper as efficiency will not improve. You have to scale down all the heavy parts as well to reduce empty weight then you get big efficiency gains.

The empty weight would be unchanged as the fuel tank weighs next to nothing. Manufacturing costs would not reduce either. It would still retain the heavy wings and heavy wingbox from the 242T version. The 787-8 would still be lighter and burn less fuel on the similar trip with similar payload.

I have said many times that the A330NEO should have used a lighter wingbox, wing, engines and landing gear. It would be selling like hotcakes. That would be enough changes to justify a new name like the A360. The A330CEO could have sold cheap for another 5 years to give Airbus time to do it properly.

RJMAZ wrote:

DeSpringbokke wrote:

Not sure if this mentioned earlier but its worthy considering the troubles of the A330neo programme, in particular the A330-800. Would it be possible for Airbus to introduce a much lower MTOW version of the A330-800 such as deactivating the central fuel tank, dropping the fuel capacity down to 25,740 gallons? Minus the central fuel tank, the A330-800 range would be considerably lower than the 7500 nm range given for the 242 tonne version. Sounds like a rather simple solution for a MoM aircraft as it has become apparent Airbus is marketing this aircraft as the MoM aircraft, even though it is too much plane, like the 787-8.

That would never work. You can't just reduce maximum takeoff weight on paper as efficiency will not improve. You have to scale down all the heavy parts as well to reduce empty weight then you get big efficiency gains.

The empty weight would be unchanged as the fuel tank weighs next to nothing. Manufacturing costs would not reduce either. It would still retain the heavy wings and heavy wingbox from the 242T version. The 787-8 would still be lighter and burn less fuel on the similar trip with similar payload.

I have said many times that the A330NEO should have used a lighter wingbox, wing, engines and landing gear. It would be selling like hotcakes. That would be enough changes to justify a new name like the A360. The A330CEO could have sold cheap for another 5 years to give Airbus time to do it properly.

Thanks for the explanation. The A330neo really is becoming a sort of white elephant for Airbus, although I don't believe the costs for the programme aren't terribly expensive. I'll get attacked for this but the A330neo programme exists only because Delta pushed for a re-engining of the aircraft to replace a majority of their 767-300 fleet as Boeing had nothing at the time. Of course Delta is in conversations with Boeing over the 797 as there is no adequate replacement for the remainder of Delta's 767-300s and the A321neo LR is lipstick on a pig.

I still expect the 339 to sell 400-500 frames when all is said and done because Airbus has too many cozy relationships with certain carriers like AirAsia X that will buy Airbus no matter what.

As far as comparisons between the 339 and 789......analysis of the fuel burn indicate they are close. On missions around 3000nm the 789 has about a 1% fuel burn advantage. Flights beyond 4000nm the 789 opens up to around a 4-5% fuel burn advantage.

I do think production costs for both planes are very close. I do not believe Airbus has any kind of major pricing advantage.

The after sale market I believe is much stronger for the 789. This might be a deciding factor along with the greater capability of the 789.

About the only thing that would have made a significant difference in the 338 is using the GEnx-2B67B from the 747-8 instead of the Trent 7000s. The Trent 7000, from what I remember, weighs about 5000 lbs more than the -2B67B each. Using those engines, certifying for a lighter MTOW and perhaps eliminating the center tank and some of the wing reinforcement weight that was associated with the extra mass of the Trent 7000 over the old 700 (which was a difference of over 4000 lbs from what I've read), could have made a noticeable difference in the actual operating weight of the aircraft, resulting in better short range economics. The engines alone account for 5 tons, the rest may make up a few more. That weight difference alone would have more than covered the 1500 lbs of thrust difference in the engines.

LightningZ71 wrote:

About the only thing that would have made a significant difference in the 338 is using the GEnx-2B67B from the 747-8 instead of the Trent 7000s. The Trent 7000, from what I remember, weighs about 5000 lbs more than the -2B67B each. Using those engines, certifying for a lighter MTOW and perhaps eliminating the center tank and some of the wing reinforcement weight that was associated with the extra mass of the Trent 7000 over the old 700 (which was a difference of over 4000 lbs from what I've read), could have made a noticeable difference in the actual operating weight of the aircraft, resulting in better short range economics. The engines alone account for 5 tons, the rest may make up a few more. That weight difference alone would have more than covered the 1500 lbs of thrust difference in the engines.

The GEnx 1B seems to be 6,147 kg, the GEnx 2B seems to be 5,623 kg.
The Trent 1000 seems to be between 5,936 and 6,120.
The Trent 7000 should have a similar weight to the Trent 1000, being the slightly changed bleed version of the former, with a lighter pto gear. Where would you find a 5,000 lbs or about 2,300 kg difference between a GEnx 2B and the Trent 7000?
I think that the official numbers for the Trent 700 include the thrust reverser. 6,140 kg would make the Trent 700 heavier than the much bigger Trent 800 and nearly as heavy as the Trent 900. The similar sized Trent 600, same size fan, would have come in at 4,840 kg.
I do also not trust the 7,747 kg in the Wikipedia for the Trent 7000 as that is only the weight of the Trent 700 with 1,600 kg added on top, the advertised difference between the T700 and T7000, and that would make the Trent 7000 far heavier than the Trent 1000 and heavier than the bigger Trent XWB,.
To end this comparison, the Trent 7000 offers 72,000 lbs and the GEnx 2B only 66,500 lbs. The Trent 1000 offers up to 74,400 and that should also be the upper limit for the Trent 7000.

Regarding the operating weight of the A330-800, the weight increase is down to the difference of the engine weight only, or rather below that. The needed weight increase due to strengthening and new wing tip devices, has, as also in the A330-900, been compensated mainly by deleting legacy A340 structures in wing and body. So we can expect the A330-800/900 to be 3.6 t or less heavier than the corresponding A330-200/300 regarding OEW and that is again compensated by a 6 t increase of the MZFW on the A330neo.

lightsaber wrote:

RJMAZ wrote:

kevin5345179 wrote:

I wonder how does the material cost compare. After all, 787 has a lot more composite material and those material do cost more. Regardless the techniques for building the plane, the material cost won't go away ...
Anyways, I think the bigger pricing issue for 787 is whether Boeing wants to do something with their deferred cost. At the current rate, I don't think they can zero the deferred cost when the current backlogs are delivered.

I can buy aerospace grade titanium for $30 a kg. So even if the 787 was entirely made out of Titanium the raw material cost would be only $3 million.

Raw material cost would be lucky to be 1-2% of the actual sale price. The majority of it is the labour cost and supplier profit margin. So even if the raw material cost of the 787 was double it could still be built way cheaper if the labour cost is less.

I could see the carbon design requiring far less assembly labour.

I agree with bigjku that the cost to make a single 787-9 is now close to parity to a A330-900. 2-3 years ago that wouldn't have been true, the 787 would have been much more expensive to build.

Material is cheap. I routinely handle $5,000 assemblies with $22 of material.

Lightsaber

Agree - especially when so often most of the original metal is expensively machined away to get to the final part. What may change is as Additive Layer Manufacturing matures and more and more pieces are made directly with much lower waste and machining time. That is going to be disruptive but it will also not be an overnight change. It is happening now and the parts that can be made are moving up the value chain!

RJMAZ wrote:

So even if the raw material cost of the 787 was double it could still be built way cheaper if the labour cost is less.

I could see the carbon design requiring far less assembly labour

The A330 does employ a lot of robotics for assembly in terms of riveting and laser welding. It does have a fair amount of composites employed as well.

The assembly process between the A330 and 787 is very similar you could even suggest Boeing copied a lot of the way Airbus was doing things from distributed manufacturing to a FAL that is basically joining stuffed barrels.

mjoelnir wrote:

The GEnx 1B seems to be 6,147 kg, the GEnx 2B seems to be 5,623 kg.
The Trent 1000 seems to be between 5,936 and 6,120.

You cannot really compare the weights this way, the Trent’s are normally a pod, with the cowl and reverser part of the pod forming part of the structural design of the engine acting as a second barrel around the engine for structural rigidity.

The GE engines normally have the cowl and reverser as part of the airframe which results lower on paper weight, however if you look at the total mass hanging off the pylon they are very similar.

RJMAZ wrote:

I have said many times that the A330NEO should have used a lighter wingbox, wing, engines and landing gear. It would be selling like hotcakes. That would be enough changes to justify a new name like the A360. The A330CEO could have sold cheap for another 5 years to give Airbus time to do it properly.

Wasn't that the A350 before the introduction of the XWB?

Naive as I was, when Airbus launched the XWB back in 2006 I thought the original A350-800 (based on the A332) would be kept, as the -800XWB would be significantly larger. Wouldn't be surprised if it would have sold hundreds of copies (they did have a of orders already, which wouldn't have to be converted to more expensive to build XWB's). And A350-900 non-XWB could be upgraded to -800XWB.

But obviously developing both a non-XWB version and the A350XWB must have been too complicated.

ElroyJetson wrote:

I still expect the 339 to sell 400-500 frames when all is said and done because Airbus has too many cozy relationships with certain carriers like AirAsia X that will buy Airbus no matter what.

As far as comparisons between the 339 and 789......analysis of the fuel burn indicate they are close. On missions around 3000nm the 789 has about a 1% fuel burn advantage. Flights beyond 4000nm the 789 opens up to around a 4-5% fuel burn advantage.

I do think production costs for both planes are very close. I do not believe Airbus has any kind of major pricing advantage.

The after sale market I believe is much stronger for the 789. This might be a deciding factor along with the greater capability of the 789.

Boeing has two FAL sites running were they expected to cope with one.

That would indicate that pass through times are still near twice the original planning.
from there: the original production cost projections will never be reached.

DeSpringbokke wrote:

Of course Delta is in conversations with Boeing over the 797 as there is no adequate replacement for the remainder of Delta's 767-300s and the A321neo LR is lipstick on a pig.

Really, you’re calling the A321neo a pig, and its LR performance lipstick!? It’s inaccurate and ill informed comments like this which really put people off frequenting this site. When did aviation enthusiasm get replaced by bipartisan tribalism.

WIederling wrote:

ElroyJetson wrote:

I still expect the 339 to sell 400-500 frames when all is said and done because Airbus has too many cozy relationships with certain carriers like AirAsia X that will buy Airbus no matter what.

As far as comparisons between the 339 and 789......analysis of the fuel burn indicate they are close. On missions around 3000nm the 789 has about a 1% fuel burn advantage. Flights beyond 4000nm the 789 opens up to around a 4-5% fuel burn advantage.

I do think production costs for both planes are very close. I do not believe Airbus has any kind of major pricing advantage.

The after sale market I believe is much stronger for the 789. This might be a deciding factor along with the greater capability of the 789.

Boeing has two FAL sites running were they expected to cope with one.

That would indicate that pass through times are still near twice the original planning.
from there: the original production cost projections will never be reached.

As near as I can find the one line was supposed to top out at 10 per month as originally planned, though it’s hard to find the exact numbers from my phone. So if they both do 7 as planned things are about 70% of where they expected.

WIederling wrote:

Boeing has two FAL sites running were they expected to cope with one.

That would indicate that pass through times are still near twice the original planning.
from there: the original production cost projections will never be reached.

Exactly why they have the beloved 28+ billion deferred cost on the program, a lot of the work they are doing in the second FAL as well as in other facilities were supposed to be done by other vendors not Boeing, so you are correct, the original figures went out the door when they decided to spend the extra billions.
Now they could very well go beyond the initial production figures, after all, they now have two FALS versus one, and a number of the outsourced production facilities are now back in house, that would be an alternative to eating the deferred cost if they can find clients to take the frames at the increased rate.

WIederling wrote:

Boeing has two FAL sites running were they expected to cope with one.

That would indicate that pass through times are still near twice the original planning.
from there: the original production cost projections will never be reached.

I'm not following.

How are you defining 'pass through times', and what are you using for 'original planning' value and 'still' currently achieved value?

Of course 'original production cost projections' will never be reached, since they were not planning to buy out the Vought-Alenia ventures at CHS etc.

But in the end it resulted in 2x the capacity (with half at a much lower labor rate) and much better ability to control cost.

If CHS had not come into being, the 'surge' line probably would have become a 2nd line, but now the space serves to boot the 77x program.

par13del wrote:

Exactly why they have the beloved 28+ billion deferred cost on the program,

IMU buying up facilities ( cheaply I'd guess ) is not part of "deferred cost".
That is more like the basket for tooling and infrastructure.

So far as I know there is no thread on this. The two NBs, the 330s, the 787s, the 777s have all been stretched to the maximum their bones allow. Ironically Airbus hoped to do the same with the 380. The smaller and shorter legged versions of these planes are not economical and have been abandoned. It does leave some big holes, those middle of the market twin aisles in particular. In hindsight a rewinged 330 MOM, essential a modern 300, looks pretty good. Is it still possible?

frmrCapCadet wrote:

So far as I know there is no thread on this. The two NBs, the 330s, the 787s, the 777s have all been stretched to the maximum their bones allow. Ironically Airbus hoped to do the same with the 380. The smaller and shorter legged versions of these planes are not economical and have been abandoned. It does leave some big holes, those middle of the market twin aisles in particular. In hindsight a rewinged 330 MOM, essential a modern 300, looks pretty good. Is it still possible?

Sure it would be but likely not cheaply.

I think something people need to also look at is what does the increasing range of an A320 and 737 open up. In theory a new built narrowbody should be able to be built lighter for the same capacity and optimized for the shorter segments that make up the vast majority of routes flown.

I think that’s one of the potential benefits of having a MOM. It lets you cover the top range of narrows and build what I expect to be a lighter and less rangey replacement for the current narrowbodies.

Indeed the MoM is the first part of a two punch attack by Boeing. The MoM allows them to take the upper part of the single aisle market with a modern twin aisle design and then they add a modern highly efficient single aisle design to dominate in that market as well.

They will only dominate in your reality... As if Airbus just sits there and does nothing

seahawk wrote:

Indeed the MoM is the first part of a two punch attack by Boeing. The MoM allows them to take the upper part of the single aisle market with a modern twin aisle design and then they add a modern highly efficient single aisle design to dominate in that market as well.

They've had such grandiose schemes before (google 'project yellowstone') but were not able to pull them off.
They don't seem to be spelling out the future that far just yet, presumably because it's not easy to do what you suggest.
It is easy to draw straight lines on powerpoint slides, though.

Revelation wrote:

seahawk wrote:

Indeed the MoM is the first part of a two punch attack by Boeing. The MoM allows them to take the upper part of the single aisle market with a modern twin aisle design and then they add a modern highly efficient single aisle design to dominate in that market as well.

They've had such grandiose schemes before (google 'project yellowstone') but were not able to pull them off.
They don't seem to be spelling out the future that far just yet, presumably because it's not easy to do what you suggest.
It is easy to draw straight lines on powerpoint slides, though.

I think the MoM is a prerequisite for a new single aisle family, as it allows them to reduce the range and size of that family without having a huge gap between the single aisle and the long haul twin aisles. If you try to cover the gap with the new single aisle, you would give up the market below 180 seats and would end up with a frame that would be too heavy for missions below 1000nm.

Airbus has several years of 321 dominance and 359/10. But that does leave some work to do. They will do it. I think that that is the topic of this thread.

bigjku wrote:

Amiga500 wrote:

bigjku wrote:

I don’t believe Airbus can build an A330neo more cheaply than the comparable 787 can now be built. At least not to nearly the extent that underlay the initial a330neo business case.

Do you honestly believe that?

Sure. Tell me why not?

Its like trying to explain why water is wet.

It is completely accepted within the industry that the cost of a composite part is significantly more than its metallic equivalent. If you don't believe me, then go look at some cost modelling research papers of theses on the subject.

Quantification of exactly how much more expensive is difficult given the various sizes and number of parts within an assembly. But, as a very high level rule of thumb, I've seen estimations that the cost of CFRP is about 4x that of aluminium per kg of assembly. I've seen other estimations where its ~ 8x the cost of aluminium per kg of material (not assembly). This makes sense given the reduced part count of a composite assembly.

But the end result is; its not even a close comparison.

If Boeing was capable of doing a spacey single aisle for up to 250 seats / 4500NM capable of significant cargo having operating costs 10-15% lower than A321 from 750NM, that would shake up Airbus.

Not twin aisles with single aisle economies kind of vapourware for investors.

frmrCapCadet wrote:

So far as I know there is no thread on this. The two NBs, the 330s, the 787s, the 777s have all been stretched to the maximum their bones allow. Ironically Airbus hoped to do the same with the 380. The smaller and shorter legged versions of these planes are not economical and have been abandoned. It does leave some big holes, those middle of the market twin aisles in particular. In hindsight a rewinged 330 MOM, essential a modern 300, looks pretty good. Is it still possible?

The 777 and A350 both have an ability/likelihood to get larger, with future derivatives. The 787 also could, but it would be with a new wing etc. As even Leahy recently admitted re: A380, the timing with engine makers is important though, so as not to be stuck a half cycle (or worse) behind significant improvements.

Amiga500 wrote:

It is completely accepted within the industry that the cost of a composite part is significantly more than its metallic equivalent. If you don't believe me, then go look at some cost modelling research papers of theses on the subject.

Quantification of exactly how much more expensive is difficult given the various sizes and number of parts within an assembly. But, as a very high level rule of thumb, I've seen estimations that the cost of CFRP is about 4x that of aluminium per kg of assembly. I've seen other estimations where its ~ 8x the cost of aluminium per kg of material (not assembly). This makes sense given the reduced part count of a composite assembly.

It's a bit of a challenge to resolve what you wrote with:

lightsaber wrote:

Material is cheap. I routinely handle $5,000 assemblies with $22 of material.

I.e, most of the cost is not in the material.

It's also hard to resolve the use of kilograms as the denominator in your statement. It presumes that 1kg of AL can provide the same benefit as 1kg of CFRP, which isn't true, otherwise it wouldn't be used.

zeke wrote:

mjoelnir wrote:

The GEnx 1B seems to be 6,147 kg, the GEnx 2B seems to be 5,623 kg.
The Trent 1000 seems to be between 5,936 and 6,120.

You cannot really compare the weights this way, the Trent’s are normally a pod, with the cowl and reverser part of the pod forming part of the structural design of the engine acting as a second barrel around the engine for structural rigidity.

The GE engines normally have the cowl and reverser as part of the airframe which results lower on paper weight, however if you look at the total mass hanging off the pylon they are very similar.

No Trents are a pod, you are probably thinking of the RB211-524. There is no difference between Trent/GEnx regarding Cowlings and reverser, in some instances they are made by the same manufacturers.

seahawk wrote:

Indeed the MoM is the first part of a two punch attack by Boeing. The MoM allows them to take the upper part of the single aisle market with a modern twin aisle design and then they add a modern highly efficient single aisle design to dominate in that market as well.

In the past the 787-8 was 1st gen, the 787-9 is 2nd gen, on wings the 777x is the 3rd gen. Doing the 797 will be 4th gen, allowing the big volume plane being the 737 replacement in really a 5th gen of all the technology added to the 787. There are now around 700 planes in service that are providing lots of info on in-service issues.

The cockpit, the nose design, APU, cabin environmental, etc can be selected that the 797 has say 4 cabin units with the future smallest NB having 2, 3 for the mid models. Lots of the parts will be common between the 797 and the future NB.

I expect the 797 to be built in 2 plants, each with wings and barrels being made at the site. There is a limit on the number of wings one line can produce, I would think it is around 7 to 10 frames each, with it still being efficient at 5 to 12 frames. In planning for disaster it is really good to have 2 sites, an event that takes down 1 would not effect the other. The new NB will add 2 lines to each of the plants, initially just 1 line each with the 2nd following after a short lessons learned period.

bigjku wrote:

KarelXWB wrote:

Polot wrote:

It is entirely feasible that at some point the 787 will be at about parity with the A330 in terms of production costs, or maybe even slightly cheaper. It is possible that day is closer than many initially realized due to Boeing’s aggressiveness towards cutting costs (squeezing suppliers, increasing rate, etc) over the past couple of years. Remember that the 787 is not a brand new aircraft anymore. Boeing have built ~650 of them; they have some experience with the type, more than many other widebody programs.

Maybe, but I believe that time has yet to come. The 787 engines alone are much expensive than the Trent 700, for example. In addition to that, while the 787 rate runs at 12 per month, it's split across two factories. So there is overhead. PAE and CHS run at rate 6 each. It would be interesting to know the production cost for each factory.

Trent 7000 has a list price of $37.9 million. GEnX is $28.7 million. Those are list prices. The Trent 1000 has a list price basically the same as the 7000 last time I looked. Yes the 700 is cheaper but not relevant goinrg forward.

List prices are not really relevant, engine deals now revolve around support packages and long term cost of ownership.

frmrCapCadet wrote:

So far as I know there is no thread on this. The two NBs, the 330s, the 787s, the 777s have all been stretched to the maximum their bones allow. Ironically Airbus hoped to do the same with the 380. The smaller and shorter legged versions of these planes are not economical and have been abandoned. It does leave some big holes, those middle of the market twin aisles in particular. In hindsight a rewinged 330 MOM, essential a modern 300, looks pretty good. Is it still possible?

Definitely possible, but feasibility may be another story. As mentioned earlier, I think a better option at this point may be to add a A350-700 and resurrect the -800 as a stretch of the -700, as opposed to a shrink of the -900. The A350 will be in production much longer than the A330, so I think it makes more sense to base a sub-variant off it from many stand points.

texl1649 wrote:

The 777 and A350 both have an ability/likelihood to get larger, with future derivatives.

Unlikely IMO.

Slug71 wrote:

frmrCapCadet wrote:

So far as I know there is no thread on this. The two NBs, the 330s, the 787s, the 777s have all been stretched to the maximum their bones allow. Ironically Airbus hoped to do the same with the 380. The smaller and shorter legged versions of these planes are not economical and have been abandoned. It does leave some big holes, those middle of the market twin aisles in particular. In hindsight a rewinged 330 MOM, essential a modern 300, looks pretty good. Is it still possible?

Definitely possible, but feasibility may be another story. As mentioned earlier, I think a better option at this point may be to add a A350-700 and resurrect the -800 as a stretch of the -700, as opposed to a shrink of the -900. The A350 will be in production much longer than the A330, so I think it makes more sense to base a sub-variant off it from many stand points.

texl1649 wrote:

The 777 and A350 both have an ability/likelihood to get larger, with future derivatives.

Unlikely IMO.

To make a A350-700 work you would need to make so many changes that you are essentially just creating an entirely new aircraft that just so happens to have knowledge and tech learned from the A350 applied to it; which Airbus will of course do for any brand new plane, as would Boeing. The fuselage is just too big (wide) and the overall frame too heavy to make a competitive A350 derivative in that space.

Moving the A350 larger with a -1100 and then creating a A330 stretch is far more likely than your idea.

WIederling wrote:

ElroyJetson wrote:

I still expect the 339 to sell 400-500 frames when all is said and done because Airbus has too many cozy relationships with certain carriers like AirAsia X that will buy Airbus no matter what.

As far as comparisons between the 339 and 789......analysis of the fuel burn indicate they are close. On missions around 3000nm the 789 has about a 1% fuel burn advantage. Flights beyond 4000nm the 789 opens up to around a 4-5% fuel burn advantage.

I do think production costs for both planes are very close. I do not believe Airbus has any kind of major pricing advantage.

The after sale market I believe is much stronger for the 789. This might be a deciding factor along with the greater capability of the 789.

Boeing has two FAL sites running were they expected to cope with one.

That would indicate that pass through times are still near twice the original planning.
from there: the original production cost projections will never be reached.

You may be right, as I have no idea where Boeing's original production cost projections on the 787 were targeted. However, per the recent Leeham article which in hindsight was very accurate, The figure of 85-95 million to build a 789 was put out there with a selling price to HA of 115 million per frame.

I do not believe Airbus can make an A339 for less than Boeing is producing 789's at the projected production rate of each aircraft. The figures I have seen says the production cost of A330-300 ceo was around 80-90 million per frame at a production rate of 10 a month. I have no reason to believe the A339 will be cheaper to produce. In fact, my guess is the cost will be higher because it is a slower production rate.

Finally, the fact that Boeing has two production lines is mentioned as a reason Boeing may not be able to keep production costs in line on the 787. The reality is the South Carolina plant is non-union, and Boeing got huge tax breaks to open a plant there. Boeing has also publicly stated it is cheaper to build 787's in South Carolina than Seattle. I assume Airbus is realizing the same cost advantages in opening a plant in Alabama to produce A320's, otherwise, why go to the expense of opening a new line?