AirInsight

Scott and Addison discuss Embraer’s announcement that it is looking at turboprops again with Mary Kirby. Mary is publishing a story for ATI on the Embraer review of turboprops.

High fuel costs are making the 50 seater regional jet unattractive, and is giving the turboprop market a boost.  Whereas there may have not been enough room for three players, it appears now that demand might be sufficient to allow for Embraer to come back into the business.

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Scott Hamilton and Addison Schonland speak with Teal Group’s Richard Aboulafia about the US airline merger talk.

The “new” Delta will have almost every type of plane there is. Will the fleet be biased towards Airbus or Boeing? What about United and US Airways? United has been on shopping sprees in Seattle to do “look see” visits. Yet United, despite is Boeing heritage, has favored Airbus before.

The combination of the markets these airlines will be left with once they give up routes, gates and other assets may bring about big changes. In a two horse race between Airbus and Boeing a winner is not easy to identify.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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