What an interesting December! Santa seems to have made an early visit to Canada.
- Air Canada ordered 61 Boeing 737 MAXs worth $6.5bn at list prices, a big win over Airbus. This is a customer turnover, which makes the deal even more impressive
- American Airlines placed a firm order for 30 Bombardier CRJ900s valued at $1.4bn, plus options on another 40 taking the deal to potentially $3.4bn. (Santa also gave Embraer an order for 60 E175s plus 90 options in a deal valued at $2.5bn from the same airline)
- Nantong Tongzhou Bay Aviation Industry Co., Ltd. in China (a start-up) ordered 30 Bombardier Q400s valued at $995m
- China Express Airlines ordered three Bombardier CRJ900s plus 13 options
Boeing finally woke up to the fact that long term (assuming Airbus increase production to 50+ a month) they are loosing the hearts and minds war (well actually getting reamed)
They obviously were willing to deal and did so. Now to see if Airbus is happy with what they have managed or ?
Longer term, the issue will be if the old 737 form can compete with the newer A320 variations with the P&W GTF engines.
LEAP is high tech and a lot of cost to squeeze more out of it. GTF is lower high tech and they can squeeze more out of the basline engine as well as to to the higher tech solutions that LEAP does.
If the P&W can up the ante with faster improvements and its reliable, then the buyers will shift to it and the 737 has a serious issue as it does not have a GTF. It will be interesting.