DTN News - BOEING NEWS: Few customers For Boeing 747 Despite Upgrade

DTN News - BOEING NEWS: Few customers For Boeing 747 Despite Upgrade

Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by K. V. Seth from reliable sources By Julie Johnsson and Andrea Rothman
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - June 4, 2014: (CHICAGO) — Boeing’s iconic 747 jumbo jet is gliding deeper into its twilight years, with a new Air Force One fleet offering the strongest sales prospect for a passenger model that no longer fits most airlines’ needs.

Even as Boeing talks with Emirates airline about an order for the upgraded 747-8, the carrier played down the chances of a deal because it’s buying 150 Boeing 777X jets. That plane will be bigger and more efficient than the current 777, a twin-engine aircraft so capable that it’s cannibalizing Boeing’s jumbo sales.

Commercial success has proved elusive for the 747-8, the latest update to an almost 50-year-old plane known for its distinctive humpbacked fuselage. While the 747-8 is a lock to win bidding that opens this year to replace the president’s fleet, waning demand for the cargo variant further imperils an assembly line that has slowed to just one or two planes a month.

‘‘Air Force One is it, unless a miracle happens in the airfreight business,’’ said Glen Langdon, president of Langdon Asset Management, a San Francisco firm that has extensive experience selling used 747s and other wide-body freighters.

Discussions with Emirates were disclosed this week by John Wojick, senior vice president for sales and marketing at Chicago-based Boeing’s commercial airplane unit, at the annual meeting of the International Air Transport Association in Doha. Emirates is the world’s largest international airline and it operates a fleet of A380s from rival Airbus Group.

Boeing is fighting to land customers, even using trade-ins of older models to seal deals. Boeing faces a ‘‘material’’ accounting loss if it can’t win sufficient 747 orders to recover the costs of development, according to a company filing. So far, Boeing has tallied just 51 sales for the passenger variant, known as the 747-8I or Intercontinental, since Deutsche Lufthansa AG placed the first order in 2006.

This year’s 747-8 order count: one. It wasn’t always so grim. Pan American World Airways announced a $525 million order for 25 of the first 747s in 1966, effectively launching a program that would go on to produce almost 1,500 planes.

But Boeing outdid itself with the 777-9X, the first twin-engine jet designed to carry a jumbo’s haul of 407 passengers. Meanwhile, a glut of the previous 747 iteration remain parked, and Boeing cut 747 production twice last year, to 18 jets a year, as the backlog dwindled.

‘‘We expect 747-8 sales to increase with the economy, and customers flying the airplane tell us they love its strong performance,’’ Randy Tinseth, a Boeing vice-president for marketing, said in an e-mail. ‘‘That’s why we continue to invest in the 747-8, to make it even better.’’

The 747-8’s likeliest sales are to the Pentagon. The Air Force is planning to upgrade the all-747 presidential aircraft fleet by 2023 and has also begun studying whether to replace the ‘‘Doomsday’’ fleet, four 747-200 jets hardened against nuclear blasts that provide a mobile military command, Charles Gulick, an Air Force spokesman, said in an e-mail.

The White House’s fiscal year 2015 budget proposes spending $1.65 billion over five years to replace its aging Air Force One fleet, which began ferrying President George H.W. Bush in August 1990.

*Link for This article compiled by K. V. Seth from reliable sources By Julie Johnsson and Andrea Rothman
*Speaking Image - Creation of DTN News ~ Defense Technology News 
*Photograph: IPF (International Pool of Friends) + DTN News / otherwise source stated
*This article is being posted from Toronto, Canada By DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News Contact:dtnnews@ymail.com 
©COPYRIGHT (C) DTN NEWS DEFENSE-TECHNOLOGY NEWS

DTN News: UK Royal Navy Participate In Dimdex 2010 Warship Display

DTN News: UK Royal Navy Participate In Dimdex 2010 Warship Display Source: DTN News / Int'l Media (NSI News Source Info) QATAR - March 3, 2010: In a major announcement from the organizers of the 2nd Doha International Maritime Defence Exhibition and Conference (Dimdex) 2010, the UK Royal Navy has confirmed plans for three ships to participate in the Dimdex Warship Display being held at Doha Commercial Port from 29th March to 31st April 2010.

Setting course for Dimdex 2010 at the invitation of Staff Brigadier (SEA) Mohammed Bin Nasser Al Mohannadi, Commander of the Qatar Emiri Naval Forces (QENF) will be two Royal Navy Sandown Class Mine Countermeasure Vessel (MCMV) and one Royal Navy Type 23 Frigate, part of Dimdex 2010's ship and submarine display.

Powerful and versatile with the capability to operate anywhere in the world, the 4,900 ton Type 23 frigate and 600 ton Sandown MCMV are mainstays of the Royal Navy's modern surface fleet. Originally designed for the principal task of anti-submarine warfare, the Type 23 has evolved into a powerful and versatile multi purpose ship capable of conducting a wide range of tasks including embargo operations, disaster relief work and surveillance operations."

Dimdex 2010 is an opportunity to enhance Qatar's historic bilateral relations with the United Kingdom. I look forward to welcoming my counterparts from the Royal Navy for a visit that allows the representatives of both countries to review the latest information sharing to support both navies during their joint operations," said Staff Brigadier Al- Mohannadi, Dimdex 2010 Chairman.

Enhancing the UK presence at Dimdex 2010 will be the UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) stand within the UK pavilion. The UK Government's international business development organization, UKTI supports businesses seeking to establish in the UK and helps UK companies grow internationally.

In less than one month His Highness Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani, Heir Apparent of the State of Qatar and Deputy Commander of the Qatar Emiri Armed Forces, will officially open the 3-day Dimdex 2010.

Over 140 Dimdex exhibitors including Boeing, Lockheed Martin, MBDA, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon, will join invited international VIP delegations and 7,000 visitors at the Doha Exhibition Center from 29th to 31st March 2010.

Libyan Leader Moamer Kadhafi Slams ICC As 'New Form Of World Terrorism'

Libyan Leader Moamer Kadhafi Slams ICC As 'New Form Of World Terrorism'

(NSI News Source Info) ADDIS ABABA - March 29, 2009: Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi lambasted the International Criminal Court on Sunday as representing a "new form of world terrorism" that wanted to recolonise developing countries. Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, seen here on March 11, recently elected chairman of the 53-nation African Union, said Sunday that the International Criminal Court represented a "new form of world terrorism". "It is a known fact that all Third World countries are opposing the so-called ICC," the recently elected chairman of the 53-nation African Union told a press conference at the AU headquarters here. "This is the case right now. This court is against the countries colonised in the past and they want to recolonise now. It is a practice of a new world terrorism that is not below the standard of the other terrorism." Kadhafi's condemnation followed a call by Arab foreign ministers on Saturday on the Hague-based ICC to annul its arrest warrant against Sudan's President Omar al-Beshir. "It is not fair that a head of state should be arrested," he said. "If we allow such a thing... we should also try those who killed hundreds and millions of children in Iraq and in Gaza." The ICC issued a warrant for Beshir arrest earlier this month, accusing him of crimes against humanity and war crimes in the western Sudanese region of Darfur. Many African and Arab states along with key ally China have condemned the ICC move and called for the warrant to be suspended. Beshir faces five counts of crimes against humanity and two of war crimes. He is the first sitting president to be issued with a warrant by the ICC. The AU has argued that the prosecution jeopardised peace efforts in Sudan and on March 18 chided the UN Security Council for ignoring its requests to defer the warrant. The bloc's Peace and Security Commissioner Ramtane Lamamra said they were awaiting a decision on the issue by Arab leaders due to their start their annual summit Sunday to make a united move. "We are about to set up a high-level delegation to go to New York to lobby the UN Security Council," Lamamra said. Beshir himself has made foreign trips to Eritrea, Egypt and Libya since the March 4 ICC arrest warrant. The ICC, the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal, does not have a police force and calls on signatory states to implement warrants. None of the three countries Beshir visited are parties to the court's statute. Kadhafi is to leave Addis Ababa later Sunday for the Arab summit in Doha. It is still unclear whether Beshir will attend the two-day meeting. Beshir is the first sitting president to be issued with a warrant by the ICC. The United Nations says 300,000 people have died in the six-year-long conflict between Darfur's ethnic minority rebels and the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum, which puts the figure at only 10,000. An estimated 2.7 million people more have fled their homes.

Democratically Elected Society Are Not Normal in Arab World

Democratically Elected Society Are Not Normal in Arab World

(NSI News Source Info) February 24, 2009: While Islamic terrorism gets most of the headlines, there's also a growing "Arab Reform Movement" in the Middle East, that believes the problems in the Arab world are internal, not external. The fact that an increasing number of Arabs support this movement, and that governments are not trying to exterminate it, is encouraging. Participants at the latest Doha Debate have strongly defended Islam"s image after repeated accusations that it had been damaged by the Sunni-Shia conflict in Iraq. In a series of robust exchanges, there was strong disagreement about the effects of violence between Islam's two largest denominations.

But the reform movement is pushing against centuries of conservatism, and opposition to the kinds of things that Westerners take for granted. Meanwhile, Most Arabs still prefer to believe in conspiracies and fantasies, rather than deal with the reality of their situation. One concrete example of reform is the Doha Debates. Eight times a year, for the last five years, a debate is held on some subject of great interest to the Arab world. Set up in cooperation with BBC (which broadcasts them worldwide to an audience of some 300 million), one of the recent debates posed the question that, after the recent Gaza war (which split the Arab world in a very public way, because many Arabs believed Hamas was being stupid, and a pawn of Iran), Arab unity was "dead and buried."

Two notable Arabs debated for each side of the argument. Then the audience of Arabs (mostly college students from all over the Arab world) voted, 77 percent for the proposition (that Arab unity was dead) and 23 percent against. The Doha Debates have been unique for the willingness to confront important issues in the Arab world, that are often only whispered about. Things like Israel and the Palestinians, the lack of democracy, education and economic progress and the role of religion in public life. Foreigners, including prominent Americans and Israelis, have been invited to argue their side of debates. Unlike a decade ago, important issues are being openly discussed.

Public attitudes are changing, and change, in general, is creeping into the Arab world. This is what will ultimately defeat Islamic terrorism.