Dubai Airshow
The big news over the past few weeks was the Dubai Airshow (Nov. 12 – 16) and a lot of airplane purchase surprises were part of the big story from the event. Last week IFExpress told our readers that this week we would cover a few (hah) plane sales as the show wasn’t over until November 16th:
Firstly, the show was the biggest and had the biggest sales – ever! To quote the show promoters: “The penultimate day of the Dubai Airshow saw two enormous aircraft purchase orders for both Airbus and Boeing, in one of the most exciting days in recent aviation business history. Airbus revealed its largest single announcement ever this morning – a US$49.5 billion deal with Indigo Partners commitments to purchase 430 aircraft in its A320neo family, described as Airbus’ largest ever single announcement. Meanwhile Boeing inked a US$27 billion deal with carrier flydubai for 225 aircraft in its 737 MAX family, the largest-ever single-aisle jet order – by number of airplanes and total value – from a Middle East carrier.”
We should also note that the airplane sales numbers are a little adjusted in some cases from earlier purchase decisions. For example: To give you a better idea about the total of announced 684 commercial aircraft ordered (as of day 4) there – here is a bit more data. The total sales value (estimated because nobody pays retail price) is at least $75 Billion which obviously makes this the biggest Dubai Airshow value ever. One should also note that some of these are “commitments” and here is a quote from the Royal Aeronautical Society on that subject: “As in previous air shows, despite the mind-boggling figures and the last-minute theatrics, it is wise to retain a certain amount of cool assessment when dealing with commitments and MoUs and the like.” We should also note that we show the aircraft manufacturer total airplane sales announcements – and yes, we have not included all in our listing. Further, we should point out that the distribution of aircraft is a better mix for Boeing, comprising both wide-body and single-aisle planes, while the Airbus sales are predominately focused on single-aisle jetliners.
Airbus
Total sales – Airbus announced that they totaled 502 plane sales
and below are a few sales highlights:
72 A320neos and 74 A321neos for Wizz Air
100 A320neos and 34 A321neos for Frontier Airlines
56 A320neos and 14 A321neos) for JetSMART
46 A320neos and 34 A321neos for Volaris
(The above 4 airlines sales from the Indigo Partners account for a single order for 430 aircraft – $49.5 Billion – Biggest Commercial Jet order ever.)
2 A330neos for Air Senegal
25 A320neo family for Wataniya Airways
Boeing
Total sales – We note that the company announced the they sold 296 planes. Here are some of the sales highlights for Boeing during the show:
40 787-10 for Emirates
5 787s for Azerbaijan Airlines
2 777F for Ethiopian Airlines
175 737 MAXs plus 50 purchase rights for flydubai
5 737 MAX 8s for SCAT Airlines
1. We should also mention that some of the above for both manufacturers sales may be the addition to a previous orders. Sales from previous agreements and commitments (and usually announced earlier) are not shown.
2. Also, we should additionally mention that Boeing and China announced airplane sales during the Presidential Trade Mission which occurred Nov. 9 (just before the Dubai show) and is an agreement that covers 300 airplanes valued at more than $37 billion) but not mentioned in the show totals.
Lastly, here are a few of the Connectivity/IFEC highlights from the Dubai Airshow: a few of the big IFEC sales involved Inmarsat, Panasonic, and Thales. Emirates chose to install Inmarsat GX Aviation inflight broadband for its new coming fleet of 150 Boeing 777X’s on order. Thales announced the Inmarsat order and also announced their IFEC system sale for the 150 airplanes which will begin delivery in 2020. Further, Panasonic Avionics was selected by Saudia to supply X Series IFE for 35 aircraft.
MORE AVIATION
Future Aircraft Demand
We should mention here that Boeing see’s a big future for MidEast Aviation plane markets in the years coming – the company forecasts that airlines in the Middle East will need 3,350 new airplanes over the next 20 years, valued at an estimated $730 billion. Further, Boeing presented its 2017 Current Market Outlook (CMO) for the region during the Dubai Airshow.
“Traffic growth in the Middle East is expected to grow at 5.6 percent annually during the next 20 years,” said Randy Tinseth, vice president of Marketing, Boeing Commercial Airplanes. “The fact that 85 percent of the world’s population lives within an eight-hour flight of the Arabian Gulf, coupled with robust business models and investment in infrastructure, allows carriers in the Middle East to channel traffic through their hubs and offer one-stop service between many cities.”
Twin-aisle airplanes are expected to make up nearly 50 percent of the new airplanes in the Middle East, and more than 70 percent of the value at $520 billion. Both percentages are significantly higher than the global average. The strong long-term demand for widebody airplanes was reinforced at the show as Emirates Airline announced a commitment to purchase 40 Boeing 787-10 Dreamliners in a deal valued at $15.1 billion at current list prices.
More than half of the total deliveries in the Middle East will be single-aisle airplanes such as the 737 MAX. Operators in the region will need 1,770 single-aisle airplanes valued at $190 billion, driven by the growth of low-cost carriers.
PANASONIC
Panasonic Avionics Corporation today introduced a major advance in inflight connectivity with the entry into service of its first High Throughput Satellite (HTS) capacity over the Pacific Ocean. The EUTELSAT 172B satellite, which launched in June, is operated by Eutelsat Communications. Leveraging its unique design, Panasonic will deliver greatly enhanced inflight broadband connectivity, live television and mobile phone services to aircraft flying high traffic routes across the Asia Pacific region spanning the West coast of North America to Asia, and down to Australia and the Pacific islands.
High Throughput Satellites use a combination of spot beams and high-level frequency re-use to provide much improved economics, more bandwidth and faster data speeds as passengers browse the internet and benefit from other online services, and airlines increasingly utilize connectivity for operational purposes. They also use a broad overlay beam, which is used to economically deliver up to nine channels of live television to passengers in flight. Panasonic is layering HTS capacity over key air traffic areas across its global satellite network, ensuring it can meet the growing connectivity demands of airlines and their passengers. It will continue to introduce high throughput satellites in every region of the world.
In addition to this support for airlines and their passengers, Panasonic subsidiary, ITC Global, which leverages the Panasonic broadband network to deliver connectivity to its energy, maritime and enterprise customers, will also benefit from the new satellite’s significant HTS advancements and enhanced coverage provided through multiple widebeam footprints.
EUTELSAT 172B is the first HTS to use a multi-port amplifier, which allows power to be dynamically moved among the HTS beams to meet demand. This ability for the HTS beams to “follow” aircraft and other mobile users enabling Panasonic to better meet customer demand and cost-effectively ensure consistently high levels of service in a way that other service providers cannot match. The entry into service of EUTELSAT 172B coincides with the introduction of Panasonic’s new BC-03 modem, developed in conjunction with Newtec, which also caters for future demand by supporting speeds of up to 250 Mbps to aircraft. This includes three demodulators for seamless beam switching and simultaneous data and video reception.
Gogo
Gogo broadband connectivity product provider, announced today that it has been selected by the Cathay Pacific Group to install Gogo’s 2Ku inflight connectivity solution on its wide-body fleet. The carrier will install 2Ku on its Airbus A330 and Boeing 777 aircraft across Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon fleets, which are both part of the Cathay Pacific Group. 2Ku is the industry’s leading inflight connectivity solution and delivers an internet experience comparable to what passengers have on the ground.
Ku will give Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon’s guests a seamless experience across their existing fleet of wide-body aircraft. The service is expected to go live by mid-2018.
ViaSat
ViaSat Inc. (NASDAQ: VSAT), a global broadband services and technology company, today announced it expanded its relationship with JetBlue, and will serve as the direct in-flight internet service provider to the airline. JetBlue aircraft will be upgraded to the latest ViaSat hardware, and will have access to the additional coverage and capacity offered by ViaSat’s next-generation ViaSat-2 and ViaSat-3 satellite platforms JetBlue first offered the ViaSat in-flight internet service, branded Fly-Fi®, in December 2013. Four years later, the airline continues to be recognized as having the industry’s “Best Wi-Fi” in the sky – most recently accepting an award for its Fly-Fi service at the September 2017 Airline Passenger Experience (APEX) show. JetBlue is the only U.S. carrier that has deployed a fast and free in-flight Wi-Fi service for all devices – across its entire fleet – encouraging passengers to stream, web browse and use the internet as they would expect to at home or at work. JetBlue’s commitment enables the airline to access ViaSat’s advanced high-
To tap into the satellites, ViaSat’s latest in-flight internet system will be installed onto JetBlue aircraft beginning in fall of 2018. The equipment offers forward and backward satellite platform compatibility, allowing JetBlue to meet the growing broadband demands of the fully connected aircraft. This future-proofing feature ensures JetBlue can cost-effectively deploy the ViaSat equipment today, and take full advantage of the more than 3.5 terabits per second (Tbps) of total expected future global capacity ViaSat will be bringing to market through its next generation of satellite platform
SITA – Flight Chain
This research project was initially established by SITA Lab with Heathrow Airport Holdings Limited (HAL) and International Airlines Group (IAG) with Geneva Airport and Miami International Airport participating. Called FlightChain, it was devised to investigate a single source of truth for flight data. The “flight data problem” is a well-known issue in the industry – namely, there is no single source of the truth and the data that does exist, is not easily accessed by all parties.While there are many cases of airlines and airports collaborating to share flight data, this data still resides in separate silos. When there are flight delays, this results in differences between passenger apps, airport FIDS, airline agents. FlightChain ensures all stakeholders have the same information. FlightChain was established as a private permissioned blockchain (implemented on both Ethereum and Hyperledger-Fabric) that stores flight information on the blockchain, using a smart contract to arbitrate potentially conflicting data. British Airways, Geneva Airport, Heathrow and Miami International Airport provide flight data that is merged and stored on the blockchain. During this project more than two million flight changes were processed by the smart contract and stored on FlightChain. The research paper published today details key lessons learned regarding governance, smart contracts, system security and system performance, scalability and reliability. Along with a view on the use of public versus private blockchain networks for the air transport industry. (Watch This!)
FlightChain: ‘smart contracts’ for shared control of data? | SITA
MORE NEWS OF NOTE
- Tom Lee, VP – Product Marketing at Zodiac Aerospace just completed the last United B747 flight extravaganza and told us where to find the great video of the trip. Too bad all flights can’t be this much fun! – Thanx Tom!
- You had better be aware that the future of some connectivity is based on “light”, not radio RF! And yes, it is the next big thing!
- A startup in Tel Aviv just developed a continuous communication action solution between hotels and their guests. Now suppose we found a “customer-to-airline” solution that just might be the future of talking to your customers – on the plane. Yea, it is a stretch, but…
Dubai Airshow | November 15, 2017– Turkish Technic Inc. and SAEI (Saudia Aerospace Engineering Industries) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) during the Dubai Airshow. The agreement expands the support and maintenance solutions in the field of component service which forms the basis to pursue a longer term business partnership between both companies in support of their customers’ fleet operations in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and surrounding market.
Under the terms of the MOU, the companies cooperate in component maintenance and component pool services, and improving partnership with working together for warehouse and logistics services.
The MOU was signed this afternoon at the Dubai Airshow by Turkish Technic Chief Executive Officer Ahmet Karaman, SAEI Managing Director Ali Al Ashban, Turkish Technic CCO Irfan Demir and SAEI VP Commercial & Marketing Saleh F. EID.
CEO of Turkish Technic Inc., Ahmet Karaman, said: “The Middle East region is extremely important for us. Extending cooperation with the SAEI fits perfectly Turkish Technic’s global strategy for increasing customer services and widening its network.”
“A strategic partnership SAEI and Turkish technic will be a new phase is the start of a different model in the relationship with our customers, where our two companies are considering the option for a long term strategic partnership, and to develop Aircraft Maintenance Industry activity in KSA following the guidelines of Kingdom’s Vision 2030″ said, SAEI Managing Director, Mr. Ali Al Ashban.
Mr. Al Ashban added: ” We are delighted with this strengthened cooperation with Turkish Technic, The agreement will set the guidelines for case by case and project by project approach to create better collaboration between two great market players ( TT and SAEI) for a better value proposition for our customers.
The new IFExpress website looks great!! What an improvement over the old site... it is like a whole new world. Cheers and kudos from New York City.”