Saj Ahmad and Fleetbuzz wrong again on A320neo

Saj Ahmad, who has been wrong on CSeries and GTF and on Airbus generally, gets it wrong again on the A320neo.

On the very day Airbus held an all-day media briefing on the neo, Ahmad publsihed (for invitees only) a piece headlined "A320neo may be scrapped?"

This merely continues his long-running theme that the neo programme is doomed--except when he wants to use the neo to make his ridiculous and wholly unsupported (and unsupportable) claim that the neo kills the business case for the CSeries. His back-and-forth demonstrates that either he can't seem to make up his mind or he changes his opinions on a whim to advance his tenuous theories and agenda.

As recently as 26 January, Ahmad wrote that "Airbus’ decision to pursue the A320neo could prove to be a very short-lived affair." Then just five days later, on 1 February, he wrote another one of his bash-the-CSeries pieces in which he claimed the launch of the A320neo programme kills the CSeries. Now he headlines a post suggesting the neo programme may be scrapped.

Which is it, Saj? The neo will be a short-lived affair or the neo kills the CSeries? If the neo is short-lived or scrapped, then there is no programme to affect the CSeries. Or the neo kills the CSeries, which means it won't be short-lived or scrapped.

That's not all. On 17 January--just two weeks before he says the neo will be short-lived--he writes that the neo means Boeing can't do nothing about the 737 future. "The 737 is still a winner until the A320neo arrives," the sage "analyst" writes in his 17 January post.

"For right or wrong, the A320neo has irrevocably changed the competitive landscape. No longer is it a proposition – its real and also stands a good chance of taking a slice of the pie at Delta Airlines’ most recent narrowbody RFP," he writes in that post.

His whirly-durvey pirouettes are enough to make your head spin. He could give a ballet dancer lessons.

Flightglobal reports from the Airbus neo briefing that John Leahy expects more than 500 orders by Paris Air Show (Saj, how do you explain your view the programme will be short-lived or cancelled?), and the GTF will be the lead engine, at least 9 months and "no more than a year" ahead of Saj's favorite, the CFM Leap-X (boy that GTF is a "bad" engine, isn't it, Saj?). Aviation Week said Airbus is "confident" in the GTF engine offer and the ability to advance the neo introduction six months to October 2015.