b737gearboy

Reuters
Boeing to scrap high-speed Sonic Cruiser - reports
Thursday December 19, 1:33 pm ET


SEATTLE, Dec 19 (Reuters) - Boeing Co. (NYSE:BA - News) has decided to scrap plans for a sleek-looking, high-speed jetliner in favor of a more conventional plane that promises more fuel efficiency and lower costs for airlines, newspapers reported on Thursday.
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The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer said Boeing executives had determined that there was not enough demand to justify developing the Sonic Cruiser, a futuristic jet that would fly about 20 percent faster than the current commercial fleet.

Instead Boeing will focus on using lightweight materials and other next-generation technologies to develop a more fuel-efficient jet, the newspapers said.

A spokesman for Boeing in Seattle had no comment on the reports.

But Alan Mulally, Boeing's commercial jet chief, was scheduled to speak in Seattle on Friday at a year-end press luncheon, and many industry observers expect that he will use the occasion to confirm that the Sonic Cruiser has been shelved.

In recent months, Boeing executives have said that they were weighing competing designs for the next mid-size airliner.

Boeing announced the Sonic Cruiser program in March 2001, but the Seattle newspapers said the more recent financial pressure on airlines, which are losing billions in the wake of the travel slump exacerbated by the Sept. 11 hijack attacks, forced a revision of those plans.

Boeing has not developed an all-new airplane since 1995, when it launched the 777. The new mid-size airliner is scheduled for availability by 2008.

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GO BUCKEYES!!!! NATIONAL CHAMPS!! O----H----I----O

D.O. Guerrero

Boeing to scrap Sonic Cruiser in shift from faster to cheaper

By David Bowermaster
Seattle Times aerospace reporter


BOEING
The Sonic Cruiser is being scrapped in favor of developing a lightweight, fuel-efficient jet.

For the second time in less than two years, Boeing plans to radically alter its product development efforts as it struggles to come up with a new jet that will appeal to the world's airlines and slow the growth of rival Airbus.
Boeing Commercial Airplanes Chief Executive Alan Mulally will announce tomorrow that Boeing will cease work on its proposed high-speed Sonic Cruiser and instead develop a conventional airplane that will use lightweight materials and other technologies to operate at significantly lower costs than today's commercial jets.

Mulally is expected to deliver the news at a year-end press luncheon at Seattle's Bell Harbor Conference Center, according to an airline industry executive familiar with Boeing's plans.

A Boeing spokeswoman declined to comment.

Prior to stunning the aerospace world with futuristic images of the Sonic Cruiser on March 29, 2001, Boeing had spent several years developing a stretched version of the 747 that could compete with the 555-seat Airbus A380 due to enter service in 2006.

Boeing canceled the 747X the same day it launched the Sonic Cruiser.

A similar swap will occur tomorrow, as Mulally is expected to talk up the new "super-efficient" aircraft's ability to help financially foundering airlines improve their balance sheets by reducing operating costs 15 to 20 percent.

"There are still doubts about the (Sonic Cruiser) technology, but more importantly its economics have been overtaken by events," said Richard Aboulafia, an aviation analyst with the Teal Group, a consulting firm. "Airlines are looking for a bus with wings."

Like the Sonic Cruiser, the new plane is expected to eventually replace Boeing's slow-selling 757 and 767 models, which carry 200 to 250 passengers.

Delivery date uncertain

It is not clear when the new jet would enter service. The projected delivery date for the Sonic Cruiser was 2008, but Boeing had cautioned the date could slip to 2010 depending on the pace of the airline industry recovery.

It is also not clear what level of resources Boeing can commit to any new product in the near term. On a conference call with analysts and reporters to discuss the company's third-quarter earnings, Boeing Chairman Phil Condit said the company would not have a full-fledged launch of any airplane project until late 2003 at the earliest.

Condit also has pledged to hold research and development expenditures at 3 to 3.5 percent of revenues, even as revenues go down, so Boeing can maintain its profitability during the current down cycle. That will mean a shrinking pool of money for new projects. A new airplane model could cost upwards of $10 billion to develop.

Alan Mulally, Boeing's chief executive of commercial airplanes, introduces plans for the Sonic Cruiser last year. New realities of a struggling airline industry are prompting the company to scrap the plane.


The reluctance to bet big on new projects during a downturn runs contrary to Boeing's history and could hurt the company when the economy eventually revives, according to some observers.

"The 777 came at exactly the low point of the last cycle," said Aboulafia, noting that Boeing was recruiting launch customers for the 777 during the recession of the early 1990s. "It was just perfectly positioned for the late 1990s upturn."

Boeing has been cautiously backing away from the Sonic Cruiser business model for several months, saying it will listen to customers and deliver whatever new airplane meets their needs.

When cost controls became paramount as airlines struggled to avert bankruptcy in the spring and summer, Boeing signaled that it was contemplating an alternative to the Sonic Cruiser that would travel at the same speeds as today's aircraft, but with a lower price tag and lower fuel burn.

Additionally, Walt Gillette, the Sonic Cruiser program manager, has stated repeatedly the past six months that any new plane Boeing pursues will leverage breakthroughs in materials and production processes that have come out of Sonic Cruiser research.

Nearly all of the nine Sonic Cruiser supplier partnerships Boeing had announced are with companies that have expertise developing lightweight composite materials, for instance.

Those materials are expected to play a key role in the "super-efficient" aircraft.

"The focus will be getting the weight out of the airplane, which is everything," said the airline industry executive.

Steep airline losses

The demise of the Sonic Cruiser has been anticipated by many in the aerospace industry since last year's Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The subsequent economic downturn, which triggered more than $7 billion in losses at U.S. airlines in 2001, only heightened pessimism about the project.

Airline chiefs such as Gordon Bethune of Continental Airlines and Richard Branson of Virgin Atlantic initially gushed about the Sonic Cruiser's promise to cut travel times 15 to 20 percent. By offering such speeds at costs roughly equivalent to today's 767, the Sonic Cruiser would allow airlines to make more money by charging frequent business travelers an even greater premium over coach passengers.

That was the idea, at least. But since the dot-com bust, business travelers have stayed in their offices more and, when they travel, are paying cut-rate prices. Against that backdrop, a premium product such as the Sonic Cruiser lost much of its appeal.

United Airlines is looking for ways to cut $5.2 billion from its annual budget to emerge from bankruptcy, and American Airlines CEO Donald Carty has said his airline must cut up to $4 billion per year if it hopes to survive.

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I use and recommend Samsonite.

KLM-MD11

Um... is this even a surprise to anyone? Boeing needs to put their engineers to work developing some new products, they seem to be falling behind lately!

AirDar

So... the plane of tomorrow will be:

A Twinjet.

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Dar~

Yours is not to question why,
Yours is but to BUY or DIE!

CAL 757-300

The Sonic Cruiser was a neat concept, but a paper plane at best. It can join the 2707 in the "high speed but never fly" section of the Boeing Museum of Flight.

I have a Pac Min model of the Sonic Cruiser and it's beautiful. I guess it's just a collectors item now.

Jetsetter

Bout time. We need to see the 787 already.