By Bjorn Fehrm
March 22, 2024, ©. Leeham News: Last week we did the first part of the Wrap-up of our 50 article series about the New Aircraft Technologies that can be used when replacing our present single-aisle airliners.
Now, we summarize the last 25 articles in the series, which covered how to develop, produce, and support a new airliner.
Figure 1. The Program Plan for a new airliner. Source: Leeham Co.
Developing, producing, and supporting a new airliner generation
The development and fielding of a new airliner generation is a mammoth undertaking of about 100,000 Workyears in total, Figure 1.
The program covers at least seven years of aircraft development, often more, then another seven years of loss-making early production, and then about 50 years of operational support.
In the last 25 articles, we discussed the different phases of this mammoth work:
- We discussed the efforts to shorten the development time, which has been around nine years for the last clean sheet programs. While there are methods like Agile that enable faster development, it’s difficult to use such methods to the full in a program that spans several organizational boundaries, such as OEM, Consultants, Tier 1 to N Suppliers, and Regulators.
- Boeing worked a lot on methods for shorter development cycles and a more effective production ramp-up phase in the NMA project. But this requires a very tight and flexible work method with the Regulator. If this thrust is not there we see the result in the 737 MAX and 777X incremental developments, which are having time overruns never seen before for such programs.
- The development and certification of a new airliner type is a program with a total cost of around $15bn. But the strain on program costs doesn’t stop with the development of the aircraft. Early production until around 400 aircraft have been produced costs money as well.
- The reason is the learning curve that increases costs for early production units (Figure 2) combined with the early adopter pricing a new airliner has to offer for launch and early customer to give subsequent customers the security these will not buy into a program that risks stopping early and leave them with orphans.
Figure 2. The production cost versus revenue curves of a new aircraft program. Source: Leeham Co.
- The cost of early production can be 50% of development costs or more, depending on how successful the project is in achieving a smooth supply of the around 4 million parts needed to produce each airliner.
- The development, certification, and production of an airliner interests the airliner industry, its stakeholders, and aircraft enthusiasts. However, for aircraft customers, the program phases around putting the aircraft into operation and its lifetime support are more essential.
- Buying a new airliner type is a multi-decade operational commitment that is 100% dependent on perfect support from the aircraft OEM. The supply of a new spare part within a day or two is a must when there are Built-In Test (BITE) failures or other reasons an airliner part must be changed. Where the airliner is parked in the world must not matter.
- Aircraft On the Ground (AOG) for more than the odd day is not acceptable for whatever reason (safety reasons, engine durability issues, etc.). An airline is a low-margin business, and all its aircraft must fly at least seven times a day for an airliner type that shall replace the 737 and A320 series.
So, while the discussion around aircraft development with all its facets is the more exciting one, excellence in the operational phase is more critical for the airline industry.
Our next Corner series will dig deeper into this. Why does engine development fail to produce durable engines when we have developed bypass turbofans for the last 70 years?
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