Boeing NMA
With the change of leadership at Boeing, a new tone has set in. With a conservative approach to the eventual 737 MAX ungrounding and a defence of the culture within the company, David Calhoun’s first week as the Chief Executive of the company sounded promising for the company to get back on track.
It appears that Boeing has shelved its plans for the ‘797 New Midsize Airplane (NMA)’ and its new CEO has asked for the project to be returned to the drawing board.This is surprising since the Boeing 797 was rumoured to be on the verge of announcement only a year ago, but now seems to be a concept that needs to be rebuilt from scratch. Whilst only time will tell what kind of direction Boeing will take, one thing was clear from the new CEO’s first teleconference with the press and a webcast with the manufacturer’s workforce; the Boeing NMA as we know it, is dead.
“We might have to start with the flight control philosophy before we actually get to the airplane,” Calhoun said. Pointing out Boeing’s pilot-first approach to the flight controls of its aircraft, he added that the company would need to “get our heads around exactly what we want,” as it develops a new, clean-sheet design for its approach to the middle market. “We are going to start with a clean sheet of paper again,” Calhoun stated.
On the other side of the ocean, champagne corks are flying around as Airbus celebrates its success with the A321XLR. Airbus extended the range of the aircraft, based on its A321 design, with a new Rear Centre Tank (RCT), a modified landing gear which brought up the Maximum Take-Off Weight (MTOW) to 101 tones and an optimised trailing-edge flap to keep the same take-off performance as the A321neo. With a range of 4,700 nautical miles (8,700 kilometres) and the ability to carry up to 244 passengers in a singleclass layout, the A321XLR is seemingly perfectly marketed for the future of the aviation industry. With the hub-and-spoke system slowly fading away, airlines will be able to stimulate point-to-point traffic on long-haul distances by offering routes that were previously fairly inconvenient, as travellers have to transfer through hubs. Much like the Boeing 757 does right now or the Airbus A321XLR plans to do when it enters service in 2023, a direct competitor to the NMA
What was the Boeing 797?
The Boeing 797 was designed as an aircraft to solve the ‘middle of the market’ problem. The middle of the market is defined as routes that need a passenger capacity from 200-300 across a medium-haul distance.This market might include routes like Sydney to Melbourne, in which a Boeing 737 or Airbus A320 is too small to effectively meet market demand, whilst long-haul Airbus A330 or Boeing 777 are too large.
The Boeing 797 will be about the same size as the Boeing 767, but will have a shorter range. Boeing had planned:
- 797-6 – able to seat 228 passengers and fly a range of 4,500nm (8,300km) - 797-7- seating 267 passengers and fly a range of 4,200nm range (7,700km)
The aircraft would have also been a replacement for both the Boeing 757 (although the 737 MAX 10 was also a good 757 replacement) and the Boeing 767. Many airlines appeared interested in the type, such as Delta Air Lines and Qantas, but they had been unable to place orders for the 797 at this time.
Why has Boeing restarted the project?
“Since the first clean sheet of paper was taken to it, circumstances have changed a little and the competitive playing field is different,” Boeing Chief Executive Dave Calhoun said. “We are going to start with a clean sheet of paper again; I am looking forward to that,”There are two major situations that have occurred in the last year to which Calhoun may be referring.
The first is the Boeing 737 MAX disaster. Boeing has had to deal with the fallout of this scenario for the last year and put other new jet development programmes like the Boeing 777X on the backburner. Another issue is that a new rival aircraft has appeared, which does largely what the Boeing 797 intended to do. Airbus launched the Airbus A321XLR aircraft back at the Paris Air Show and it has snapped up orders from many different airlines. This aircraft can fly an incredible range and seats up to 220 passengers. Airbus also offered the A330-800neo for airlines needing an aircraft for the 270300 seat range, but it has not been very popular. With this news, Boeing will be looking at around five years to bring a new aircraft design to market. There is the designing phase, then the aircraft has to be built and tested. However, with the airframe builder asking for $10 billion USD in loans, does it have an appetite to design a whole new expensive aircraft?
Current role of the 757 and A321LR
Despite Boeing introducing the 757 in 1983 with Eastern Air Lines, the product is still widely popular with airlines. Out of 1,049 aircraft built, commercial airlines still operate more than a third of the total aircraft produced, not including the 300-strong fleet of freighters. For instance, one Delta Air Lines’ Boeing 757200 that was badly damaged during a rough landing in Ponta Delgada Airport, Portugal (PDL) in August 2019, was repaired and continues flying to this day, despite the fact that it is already 23 years old. During this summer, Delta Air Lines plans to increase its transatlantic flights from Boston Logan International Airport (BOS) and the majority of the increased presence, as indicated by the airport’s summer schedule, will be flown by the 757s.