Agreed, I think the fact that this was even talked about means they are probably farther along than mere concept. How far along is anyone's guess, but I bet we see it quicker than 10 years, simply because Boeing needs something to produce long-term income.

 

Boeing has a back log of 6000 airframes. That's over a half a trillion dollars. Just as they did with the 787, they'll figure out whatever that replacement will be...and so will Airbus. It will be interesting to see not so much the engines but the airframe replacement. That airplane may fly into the next century. The Max's are still being ordered with deliveries into the next decade. By the time those are airplanes are retired, the original design of the 737 will be almost century old. Pretty crazy to think about.

 

Quick Summary

Boeing is planning a new single-aisle airplane that would succeed the 737 MAX, according to people familiar with the matter, a long-term bid to recover business lost to rival Airbus during its series of safety and quality problems.

Earlier this year, Chief Executive Kelly Ortberg met with officials from Rolls-Royce Holdings RR 1.85% in the U.K., two of the people said, where they discussed a new engine for the aircraft. Ortberg appointed a new senior product chief in Boeing’s commercial plane business, whose prior role was developing a new type of aircraft.

Boeing has also been designing the flight deck of a new narrow-body aircraft, according to a person familiar with the plans.

This new aircraft is in early-stage development and plans are still taking shape, some of the people said.

Boeing’s plans represent a shift for the company, which had put some new aircraft development work on the back burner while it navigated multiple challenges. They are also a sign that the company is betting that a cutting-edge plane design could power its business for the next few decades.

Ortberg hasn’t publicly detailed any plans for a 737 successor. He has consistently said that fixing Boeing’s long-running quality and manufacturing problems, and shoring up its balance sheet, are his priorities.

At a recent investor conference, Ortberg said the company is looking to finish up various projects, which “will also free up a lot of capital for us to focus on what’s next.”

Boeing said in a statement that it remains focused on its recovery plan, including delivering on a backlog of roughly 6,000 commercial airplanes and certifying already-announced aircraft models.

“Our team evaluates the market, advances key technologies, and improves our financial performance, so that we will be ready when the time is right to move forward with a new product,” the company added.
The interior of an Airbus A320neo as the aircraft was delivered to an airline in 2024. Photo: Ed JONES/AFP/Getty ImagesBoeing’s aircraft-development programs have struggled in recent years. The 737 MAX entered commercial service in May 2017. Two deadly crashes involving the jets resulted in a global grounding of the fleet in 2019 and delayed two new variants. The company later dropped plans to build a new midsize aircraft that it had been trumpeting. It is years behind on a new upgrade for its 777.

The crashes and other safety problems dented customers’ confidence, spurred turnover in Boeing’s senior management and prompted regulatory crackdowns.

As Boeing struggled, rival Airbus didn’t sit still. The European aircraft manufacturer has grown to be the world’s biggest plane maker by total deliveries and order backlog.

Despite starting production roughly 20 years after its rival, Airbus deliveries of A320 narrow-body jets have caught up to Boeing’s deliveries of its 737s.

Airbus’s gains are bringing it billions of dollars to invest in its own next-generation narrow-body, an aircraft that it wants to deliver to customers in the late 2030s.

Boeing’s previous chief, Dave Calhoun, considered reviving the effort for a midsize aircraft to gradually replace the 737 family and discussed the idea with customers. Those grand plans took a back seat to more-pressing problems following a midair door-plug blowout that exposed persistent manufacturing problems and led to Calhoun’s departure in 2024.

Boeing has historically signaled development plans years in advance to entice airline customers, lock in commitments from suppliers and drum up interest from investors.

Ortberg, who has led Boeing for just over a year, has had an eye on Boeing’s next big play.

Building an all-new aircraft, known as a clean-sheet design, can take over a decade and cost tens of billions of dollars. Manufacturers typically look for at least a 15% jump in fuel efficiency when deciding whether to embark on a major plane program. That could come from new engine architecture, lighter materials or radical changes to the airframe.

In February, Ortberg traveled to Rolls-Royce’s factory in Derby, England, a roughly three-hour drive from London, where he met with the company’s CEO, Tufan Erginbilgic. The Boeing chief heard the company’s pitch to supply an engine for a new narrow-body aircraft.

“We actually hosted Boeing leadership in Derby to talk about narrow-body this year,” Erginbilgic said, according to a transcript of a September investor event viewed by The Wall Street Journal. “That should give you a sense where the conversations are.”

Rolls-Royce, which began testing a prototype of its newest engine in 2023, doesn’t yet have a customer for the technology. The new engine could offer a 10% jump in fuel efficiency compared with engines on Airbus’s A320neo and up to 20% when combined with other upgrades to a new airframe, the Rolls-Royce CEO said at the investor presentation.

In a separate media event, Erginbilgic said the company would need a partner to help manufacture the engines and could begin deliveries as soon as 2035, a faster timeline than what Airbus is planning for its next narrow-body plane.

Any deal with Rolls-Royce would mark a major change for Boeing, which for about 40 years has used engines from CFM International—a joint venture between GE Aerospace and Safran—to power its 737 narrow-body planes. The first 737 aircraft made its debut in the 1960s.
Rolls-Royce began testing a prototype of an engine in 2023. Photo: Andrew Betton/Rolls-Royce Archive/Getty ImagesIn April, Boeing shifted the focus of a project with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration aimed at developing a radical new and greener aircraft, known as X-66. Instead, the company has retooled that effort to design a lighter and more aerodynamic wing for a new aircraft.

The next month, Ortberg promoted Brian Yutko, boss of its flying-taxi subsidiary Wisk Aero, to a role leading product development within the company’s commercial division. The role would include overseeing any successor to the 737 family of planes.

Boeing executives have said that Wisk technologies would be essential to designing future cockpit avionics, including Boeing’s next airplane.

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Ortberg has worked to convince customers and the public that Boeing can overcome its challenges. That has been reflected in comments from airlines, including the discount carrier Ryanair, one of Boeing’s biggest customers and at times, a staunch critic.

Boeing is “doing a really good job at the moment, the aircraft are coming early, quality is excellent,” Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary said at a press conference in August. He said Ryanair had started recalling engineers it had based at Boeing’s factories to oversee the plane maker’s work.

The Federal Aviation Administration, which will have to approve Boeing’s new plane, is loosening its grip over the company’s aircraft deliveries and production. Regulators expressed tentative satisfaction with the plane maker’s efforts to improve its manufacturing quality.

The company still has major near-term hurdles to clear. Two new 737 MAX models have yet to be certified. Boeing is roughly six years behind schedule in bringing an upgraded 777X, a long-distance aircraft, to market.

Write to Benjamin Katz at [email protected] and Drew FitzGerald at [email protected]

 

I just hope that the ghosts of the past are able to teach the team going forward some lessons. The 787 is a modern marvel, but the genius idea of spreading the supply chain across the globe to decrease costs and increase political clout was a remarkably stupid decision that has cost Boeing untold billions of dollars. It turns out that the business school professors and students who did the modeling and wrote white papers on JIT production and global supply chains were forgetting that the world is a messy place.
In hindsight, producing the entire airplane in the US would have had a massive positive macro impact on the economy as well as on the bottom line of the company and enabled them to manage the huge risk of incorporating new technology by being able to keep a close eye on quality and production.
The same thing has happened on a lesser scale with the 737 family. It was mostly produced in the US already, so it was hard to mess that up. They somehow managed to by, once again, listening to the accountants and disregarding solid engineering principals that made that company what it is.
Ortberg seems to be on the right path since he has been given the leeway to do what he needs to in order to turn the company around. We will see how much of a leash he actually has in the next few years.

 

There are 3 key numbers there, and they're the reason why development was cancelled no matter how many people say they "should have" started 20 years ago.

First, 15% efficiency gain is a minimum target for a clean sheet design. This is pretty much necessary for a customer to willingly pay the extra amount to transition to a new airframe. Without a 15% gain, no customer is going to willingly pay to change to an entirely new airframe. 20 years ago and today, it's the same dilemma - this target can NOT be met with a simple engine swap and aero clean-up of a conventional 737/A320 size and shape airframe. There must be a fairly radical change made to the airframe size and/or shape that the customers agree to buy in the end, otherwise they'll just stick with the 737 and/or A320 because the payoff isn't there. Note I intentionally used the word "willingly", as the airlines may end up forced to switch aircraft types when the current design is no longer produced. This puts some urgency onto the airlines to actually come to a mutual agreement on the size/shape of the replacement if for no reason other than airport gate and servicing equipment commonality which would be a huge extra long-term cost item if not standardized.

Second, 10% efficiency gain from the motors alone. That leaves at least 5% that must come from aero. Again, in the past while the 737 and A320 were still in production and there was no pressing reason to abandon those product lines, the industry as a whole had to come to a reasonably firm concensus about how to get that 5%. There are 2 robust proposals that have been thoroughly reported on by aviation week and other sources, namely switching to super long thin flappy wings that may or may not be externally braced, or going to a fairly radical new blended wing-body shape. Both of those proposals have been the subject of very thorough research and are essentially ready to go as far as being the basis of a new airline design. Thing is, those designs both require significant changes to airport infrastructure to support and the BWB shape also radically changes the passenger experience due to the much wider interior layout (up to 20 seats in each row and multiple aisles). On top of that, there are other design features such as going with a shorter but wider fuselage with dual aisle configuration to try to speed up boarding and deplaning, along with a host of other minor changes. All of that can drive cost and passenger experience in huge ways, and this was the barrier 20, 15, 10, 5 years ago. And today. Nobody wants to come to an agreement on any of this because it constitutes a major risk to each airline's business model just to get a 5% efficiency gain.

Third, that 20% number is the incentive. If they can show 20% instead of 15% efficiency gain, then that counterbalances the huge risks that must be accepted and overcome with a new airframe configuration.

There are 2 reasons for an airline to accept the risk to go to a new design - First is because the payoff outweighs the risks in a big way. Second however, is if the airlines are simply forced to do it. And it sounds like that's where we are today. Boeing simply can't extend the 737 design for another generation. So if the industry as a whole can't agree on a new configuration, they're going to have to bet the company on a new design and roll the dice, hoping that the airlines will like the new plane enough to buy it. The airlines will buy SOMETHING 20 yrs from now, and it won't be another couple thousand 737s. So what will they buy? They'll buy whatever Boeing or Airbus offer no matter how goofy it looks or how radically the interior has changed.

The airlines have had decades to thinking about this, and some airlines have taken it seriously. Southwest is still fiddling with legroom, but the other airlines have all been researching boarding schemes and product offerings, from sleeper cabins all the way down to basic economy. But while they'll give their inputs to Boeing and Airbus, the fact is that in the absence of an airline concensus over configuration, Boeing is going to have to make those decisions and the airlines will be forced to buy whatever is for sale.

Airbus can go one of 3 ways - they can join Boeing to force the paradign shift in a specific way and mirror their design choices. Or they can try another solution for a major design change. Or their third option would be to give up on the 15% efficiency gain goal and simply design a clean sheet conventional airline shape with new motors that will still fit at an A320 gate, and try to under-cut Boeing on total cost of ownership (adding all costs such as airframe plus mx plus retraining plus new gates plus new ground servicing equipment plus airport infrastructure).

Or Boeing could also surprise everyone by just making a small 787, also giving up on the 15% efficiency goal. This is the "weak" but conservative option. Simply discontinue the 737 line and offer up a similar but new replacement that doesn't really change anything except make the planes a bit taller so they can fit bigger motors under the wings. That minimizes costs for everyone but Boeing and can dramatically reduce risk for everyone but Boeing. Boeing's risk is that Airbus will make a design change that jumps them ahead, plus they have to somehow make back the design costs for a plane that will cost more than a 737 but doesn't offer much more than a 737 did. One way or another, airlines will buy new planes. And there's only really 2 manufacturers. So if the next generation of planes isn't really any better than the current ones but they simply cost more, what's the airline going to do? They're still gonna buy new planes.

 

For reference, the A320 NEO and 737 MAX engine upgrades netted anywhere from 10% to 13%, depending on who you ask and what routes and optimizations you consider. The 737 got a percent or two from aero cleanups, but as far as I know and remember the A320 didn't really get anything on the aero side. A320 NEO training was simpler than the MAX training as far as I remember, and the MAX training *should* have been 2x as long due to the large number of subsystems that were changed. With the A320, it was the motor and a little bit of bleed air plumbing and that was it, as far as I remember.

A new plane that costs 2x what a 737 does but offers only another 10%-13% efficiency improvements is a hard sell, even if the airlines ultimately have no choice. So the big question for the CEOs, board of directors, and accountants, is if the next 5%-10% efficiency gain is worth the direct costs and risks associated with a new size or shape. The risks are so big that in my opinion the airlines will never agree on a single configuration, so Boeing and Airbus will need to make those decisions and potentially force them onto the industry. Unless they just offer a weak 10% improvement on the same old design, and charge whatever it costs because the airlines won't have any choice except to just pay it.

 

 

Breeze doesn’t compete with Southwest. But you might want to get in on the secondary route market that would complement your network pretty well. Maybe a feeder system to bigger hubs where the 787s are waiting to take the folks international. Kind of like a legacy maybe?? Then you might have something. Of course a JB merger can accomplish this too but that’s probably less likely to be approved.

 

Breeze would only make sense if the MAX 7 dies and SWA became a full network carrier. SWA is still toying with some connections hence why all the displacements these days. IMO too many moving parts at SWA at the moment to take on a acquisition of any kind unless they had to.

 

“While the pace of flight tests of the 737-7 and -10 has waxed and waned over the past two years, a new uptick in aircraft activity indicates Boeing may be entering the final stretch of certification tests for the long-delayed pair of MAX family derivatives.”

https://aviationweek.com/air-transpo...ification-push