Posts Tagged ‘orders’
Airbus A320neo orders trounce Boeing at the Paris Air Show
SAFRAN Snecma’s LEAP engine selected by Airbus to power the A320neo
Daylife/Getty Images used by permission
As expected, the Boeing vs. Airbus rivalry is again front and center at this year’s Paris Air Show.
The Associated Press writes Airbus “is trouncing Boeing in the race to be the world’s biggest planemaker,” buoyed by what the European jetmaker says is the largest-ever order for commercial passenger jets.
As for the order that Airbus is lauding as historic, that comes from Malaysia’s AirAsia, which officially signed off today on a deal for a whopping 200 of Airbus’ 320neo jets…
The record-setting AirAsia order comes only a day after Airbus received what was then the record order. AP writes Airbus set “the previous record … just Wednesday by (winning) another A320neo customer, (Indian) carrier IndiGo.”
The Financial Times notes “the deal makes AirAsia Airbus’s biggest customer for narrow-body jets, with a total of 375 orders for A320-series aircraft, including 89 already in service.”
Airbus’ next-generation A320 neo — neo stands for “new engine option” — “has proven to be the star of the aviation industry’s premier event,” AP writes…
Dow Jones Newswires details the numbers for the A320neo, writing Airbus “racked up 667 orders and commitments for the A320neo, a new, more fuel-efficient version of the Airbus A320, a favorite of low-cost airlines operating medium-haul routes. Offering airlines up to 15% fuel economy compared to a present-day A320 due to new engines and wing appendages, it will be delivered to Airbus customers starting in late 2015.”
Overall, Airbus has announced deals for 730 aircraft at the air show. The orders would be worth $72 billion at list prices, though customers typically negotiate prices that are substantial lower. Boeing deals announced at the show totaled 142 aircraft worth $22 billion at list prices.
When you get past the crowing by EADS and the whining and rationales by Boeing, one factor stands out. Airlines are quite reasonably spending their money on more economical aircraft. If you can spend less per mile you stand a better chance of being competitive.
Boeing sits back on its butt in a nation that has no sensible energy policy and provides subsidies to industrial barons whether they’re advancing energy and cost-saving practices or not. The White House hasn’t the backbone or the votes. Congress is too widely owned by Big Oil to fight for practical economy.
Euro manufacturers like EADS have to compete in the real world – the one that recognizes every factor from climate change to peak oil as affecting their ability to do business. That’s a significant difference.
Egypt turned off the Internet one phone call at a time
Egypt’s shutdown of the Internet within its borders is an action unlike any other in the history of the World Wide Web and it might have only taken a few phone calls to do it.
“It’s something I’ve never seen; it’s totally unprecedented,” said James Cowie, the co-founder and chief technology officer of Renesys, an IT company in New Hampshire that helps Internet service providers monitor the security of Web networks and infrastructure.
“Over a period a period of about 20 minutes, it’s as if each of the primary service providers started pulling the routes that lead to them. It wasn’t like a simultaneous withdrawal.
“Nobody flipped an off switch or hit a big red button. It was one by one until they were all gone.”
The Egyptian government cut off nearly all online services between midnight and 12:30 a.m., Egyptian time, on Friday, Cowie said — something he noted on his company’s blog as he witnessed the blackout…
“Egypt is a modern country; the government doesn’t own the Internet,” Cowie said. “There are private companies of varying sizes that own and operate their own infrastructure. But it seems that they got a call and so they turned it off.”
This is perfectly legal according to the laws of some countries. And if ISPs wish to do business in such countries they will sign contracts that agree to the laws of the land.
We don’t have laws like this in the United States. Yet.
Some members of Congress are trying to change that.
It was Cheney! Anyone surprised?
The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter have said.
The report that Mr. Cheney was behind the decision to conceal the still-unidentified program from Congress deepened the mystery surrounding it, suggesting that the Bush administration had put a high priority on the program and its secrecy.
Mr. Panetta, who ended the program when he first learned of its existence from subordinates on June 23, briefed the two intelligence committees about it in separate closed sessions the next day.
What a slimy thug!
The disclosure about Mr. Cheney’s role in the unidentified C.I.A. program comes a day after an inspector general’s report underscored the central role of the former vice president’s office in restricting to a small circle of officials knowledge of the National Security Agency’s program of eavesdropping without warrants, a degree of secrecy that the report concluded had hurt the effectiveness of the counterterrorism surveillance effort…
One intelligence official, who would speak about the classified program only on condition of anonymity, said there was no resistance inside the C.I.A. to Mr. Panetta’s decision to end the program last month…
In the eight years of his vice presidency, Mr. Cheney was the Bush administration’s most vehement defender of the secrecy of government activities, particularly in the intelligence arena. He went to the Supreme Court to keep secret the advisers to his task force on energy, and won.
Well of course, he won. It’s one of the most reactionary courts since some time before World War 2. The majority of court members are back-asswards Federalists who are at least 70 or 80 years in arrears of advancements in science, law and knowledge in general. They are gutless wonders who hide behind history as rationale for what passed for activism during the Inquisition.
RTFA. After you have something in your stomach.
