Singapore Air Show - 787 compensation claims, booming S'pore aerospace industry and Temasek's well connected CEO

Steven Udvar-Hazy, chief executive International Lease Finance Corp (ILFC), the world's top plane leasing firm, is not a happy man.

ILFC have orders for 74 Boeing 787's and 15-20 of ILFC's 787 orders are expected to be affected by the the double production delays ... which are not necessarily the end of its problems.

The booming and busy (80,000 visitors, 827 exhibiting companies from more than 42 countries) Singapore Air Show is a hot bed of gossip about the costs to Boeing as ILFC is wanting compensation, as are Japan's All Nippon Airways , Australia's Qantas and Air India have already made their position clear about compensation. Steven wants compensation, he tells us "on a large scale" and puts the monthly income of Boeing 787 lease at US$1 million.

Airlines have so far ordered 857 of the planes, worth $140 billion at list prices.

Goodrich Corporation opened its new US$32 Mn. 530,000-square-foot aircraft component and systems maintenance and repair campus today which will employ 700 staff. It will be a stratgeic base to provide services for commercial and military aerospace customers from across Asia, Australia and the Pacific Rim. Services will cover a broad range of aircraft including new and future models such as the Airbus A380, Boeing 787 and Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II.

Nearby Pratt & Whitney and their partner Eagle Services Asia (as Pratt & Whitney Global Service Partners ) have installed their patented EcoPower(R) closed-loop atomised water process to wash Singapore Airlines' fleet entire fleet of passenger and cargo aircraft engines. They claim this will result in savings of US $15 million in fuel costs and reduce CO2 emissions by 128 million pounds. This is because the improved EcoPower system can reduce fuel burn by as much as 1.2% percent and increase the exhaust gas temperature margin by as much as 15 degrees Celsius.

When opening the show yesterday, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, 56 (eldest son of Lee Kuan Yew - democratic dynasties rule OK ? **) said that the the new 300-hectare Aerospace Park in Seletar will help to boost the Singaporean aerospace industry which hit a record high in 2007 with an output of nearly US$7 billion.

"Last year, Boeing and Airbus announced record orders for new aircraft. In the next two decades, the global commercial aircraft fleet is expected to more than double in size," said the prime minister.

Airbus, announced a record year in 2007 having sold 1,341 aircraft and ending the year with a backlog of 3,600 orders. Boeing posted more orders in the year (1,413)

*** Lee leads the People's Action Party with 82 of the 84 seats in Parliment and enjoys an annual salary of US$2 Mn. Lee's wife , US educated technocrat, Ho Ching (#3 in Forbes 100 Most Powerful Women) is the director of state investment agency Temasek Holdings which handles US$160 Bn (ish) of state funds and is owned 100% by the Ministry of Finance. (Morgan Stanley source of valuation) - a substantial investor in Barclays Bank (US$4.34 billion June '07).

Web of cash, power and cronies by Eric Ellis Sept 29, 2007 explains how Singapore state investments provide Burma's pariah junta with the crucial equipment mostly denied by Western sanctions, and that Singapore has helped keep the junta and its cronies afloat for 20 years. 74-year-old junta leader Than Shwe has been getting his intestinal cancer treated in a Singapore government hospital, protected by Singapore security.