Delta closing in on CSeries deal

a reply to: justwanttofly

The A321 was already signed. They announced it quietly the other day. I suspect the formal announcement for both will come tomorrow.

a reply to: justwanttofly

Check your messages. The info you need is there.

Bombardier had a bit of an inside track on this deal. Delta is funding Republic while they're in bankruptcy. In return Delta had the option to take over the order Republic had for 40 300s.

It's also expected that Air Canada will firm up the LOI thru signed as well tomorrow. That will give them near 400 aircraft on the books.

Delta has ordered 75 firm, 50 options, and the rights to convert aircraft to 300s. The deal was tagged at $5.6B.

a reply to: Zaphod58

This is fantastic news for a company that I have always had a major soft spot for (what can I say, I like trains!).

The synergies that a combined CSeries/A321neo fleet will offer domestic carriers in terms of efficiency and shared engine technologies should be keeping Boeing (and Embraer) execs up in cold sweats at night.

Delta has taken the lead on this one, and I would be shocked if American, United, or JetBlue doesn't follow suit.

Just this Sunday I was on a JetBlue E190 and I was noticing how tired they're starting to look. There are some big orders that are just over the horizon, that's for sure.

a reply to: Barnalby

Back when there was a Northwest, they were known for taking chances on new aircraft as they entered service. When Delta got them that mentality carried over.

This is huge for Bombardier. It doesn't push it into profitability, but it pushes it into relevance. It's going to make it harder for Boeing and Airbus to quash orders now.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Yeah, and now, every airline purchasing/capital investments director that's looking to replace their A319s, 737-300s, or E190s will HAVE to seriously consider the CSeries if they don't want to invoke the wrath of their shareholders or board of directors. If Bombardier can even manage to snag 1/4 of the 100-150 seat market orders that are coming up in the next 5 years or so, it will change their story completely.

BA, for one is where I could see a ton of potential CSeries sales, for the way its short-field abilities, fuel efficiency, and low noise pollution could open up profitable medium distance routes out of LCY alone. Think the failed Porter order, but only this time, Billy Bishop is in the middle of New York City.

It's going to be in interesting few years, that's for sure.

The Bombardier folks must be elated that a CSeries visit to an airline HQ actually resulted in a sale for once.

Delta also announced a 37 aircraft order for A321ceos.

a reply to: Zaphod58

The A32Xneo + CSeries combination will become an absolute killer app for all short/mid-haul airlines on the basis of engine commonality alone.

The A320/321neos both look to be some incredible aircraft in their own rights, and the CSeries is the airframe that the A318 and A319 always dreamed of being.

Add in the shared GTFs, and you have a hell of a proposition for airlines looking to minimize their fuel/passenger/mile costs.

a reply to: Barnalby

The 320neo is hurting. They're slightly exceeding the fuel burn goals but customers aren't happy with them.

a reply to: Zaphod58

That isn't surprising. The "GTF" is a turbofan in name only, and could more realistically be considered a "ducted turboprop" or a "un-ducted fan with a duct anyways for noise reduction".

The only reason I can see for why P&W decided to call it a turbofan would be to keep from scaring off executives and manufacturers from what is essentially an entirely new sort of engine.

That being the case, the delays seen in ALL GTF-powered aircraft aren't that surprising, and like the 787's similar delays, will probably end up meaning Jack all once airlines see the real-world fuel efficiency stats, and this will all be water under the bridge by 2020.

Compare it to what Boeing did with the 737MAX, which was basically to slap on a new wing and avionics while lengthening the main gear and tweaking the nacelle to support a slightly bigger/more efficient version of the existing (and fairly conservative) CFM engine. It's utterly apples to cauliflowers in terms of complexity.

a reply to: Barnalby

Yeah, the GTF is hurting them now, but it's more than just that. They've seen software problems as well as issues with the hydraulic system in addition to the GTF issues. And the hydraulic equalization pump is louder in the cabin, which is going to hurt the passenger comfort some and turn people off.

The executives are going to love the fuel burn improvement, true, but they are in serious danger of losing Qatar from the program, which is going to hurt, a lot. That will make others rethink them.

JetBlue has resumed talks with Bombardier for an order.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Anyone thinking about making a purchase has to get serious now because they may not be able to get delivery slots for quite a while with the recent Air Canada and Delta orders.

Wouldn't be surprised if JetBlue made the purchase. Apparently they haven't been totally happy with their E-190s, and with the E2 a ways away, the CSeries presents a viable efficiency improvement.

a reply to: Zaphod58

That doesn't surprise me at all. The E190 I flew a week ago was one tired looking aircraft. It was seriously as bad as the old un-wingleted 737-300s that Southwest rolls out of reserve for high-traffic holidays, etc.

They're not old airplanes, but it kind of feels like JetBlue has given up on them.

a reply to: justwanttofly

The appeal goes even further than that.

I've been flying a JetBlue E190 route pretty much monthly (at least) for the past 2 years, and over the last 6 months to a year or so, I've been noticing an uptick in the number of passengers on a given flight.

Back in 2014, it wasn't at all unusual to have the last 5-6 rows of an E190 be mostly empty on a midday flight. Now, they're almost always completely full, to the point where the extra time they take to load/disembark passengers and their carry-ons is messing with the E190s schedules. Nowadays, it's par for the course for the E190 to be running 15-30 minutes late due to the extra time it takes to board and unload a 100% full aircraft.

JetBlue needs something with more capacity than the E190 on their lower-volume routes, and the CSeries is the magic bullet, while also offering far better cost/passenger/mile fuel numbers than the E190s do. Furthermore, the crew costs for a CS100 or CS200 shouldn't be any different than they are for an E190, which will further help margins.

And that's before you get to my favorite dead horse of engine commonality. It's all but written in stone that JetBlue will be upgrading their A320 fleet to A320/A321NEOs in the near future, which would currently create three different engine families for the carrier to deal with (the E190s CF34s, the A320's V2500s, and the NEO's PW1100Gs). Southwest is already killing JetBlue in the maintenance cost arena, and I'm sure that JetBlue is looking to consolidate their fleet as much as possible.

Adopting the CSeries to replace the E190s means that once it comes time to replace the A320 fleet, even when they have three airframes flying, they will only have two engine families to worry about maintenance for, since the PW1000G in the CSeries and the PW1100G in the A320NEO are essentially the same engine. It also means that once the A320s are fully replaced by 2025 or so, JetBlue will have two different airframes to worry about maintaining, but only one engine family, giving them the most streamlined fleet they could possibly have from a maintenance standpoint.

There are just too many reasons why the CSeries works for JetBlue, and it's exciting to see that the execs there are paying attention and looking to follow in Delta's footsteps.

If this goes through, I'd argue that it'll be just as pivotal to the CSeries as the Delta order, because of the reputation JetBlue has among discount carriers. This could well bring more 'big fish' like Easyjet or Spirit into the fold.

EDIT: Jeez, that turned into a blog post. What can I say, though, I like civil aviation, I really like the CSeries, and I fly JetBlue a lot...