Posted on 06/03/2005 4:30:08 PM PDT by Paleo Conservative
TOKYO -- With the order count for Boeing's new 787 soaring, John Leahy of Airbus is heading for the Paris Air Show later this month ready to close the gap with his longtime foe.
A series of design changes during the last three months to the A350 are nearly complete, and, after a slow start, Airbus finally has the plane that customers say they want, said Leahy, chief commercial officer at Airbus and its bulldog sales chief.
Not only is he going after Boeing's 787 with one version of the A350, but he's prepared to take on Boeing's 777-200 with a second and bigger A350.
"I'm now getting an airplane out there that is more than competitive with the 787, and you will see orders very soon," he said in an interview this week at the annual meeting here of the International Air Transport Association, or IATA. The group represents some 270 international airlines.
Leahy said at least four airlines will announce orders for more than 100 A350s at the air show, which begins June 13. The bulk of those are expected to come from Emirates, for as many as 50 planes, although Leahy refused to identify any customers.
It's possible that by year's end Airbus could have 200 orders for the A350, Leahy said, but after what befell Boeing last year he did not want to make a flat-out prediction. Boeing executives had confidently predicted 200 orders for the 787 by the end of 2004, then had to explain why the company fell well short of that target.
During the first half of this year, however, the 787 order book has surged. Boeing now has 266 orders and commitments from 21 customers for the 787, and sources say more 787 orders will be announced either just before or during the air show.
One key customer for either the 787 or A350 that won't be announcing an order at the air show is Singapore Airlines, Boeing's biggest 777 operator and also the first airline that will take delivery of the Airbus A380 superjumbo late next year.
Singapore Chief Executive Chew Choon Seng said last year he was very interested in the 787 but wanted to wait to consider the new Airbus.
"The specifications and design targets for the A350 are being crystallized right now," Chew said in an interview this week. "Airbus is just about to finalize the version they will offer us to best match our requirements."
One factor that works in favor of the fuel-efficient 787 and A350 is the "stubbornly high price of fuel," Chew said. "That makes both propositions more attractive right now. But a lot will depend, at the end of the day, on how much it will cost to own and operate. We are waiting to hear what Airbus presents. If they price the A350 attractively enough, we would take a look."
Chew said Singapore Airlines will issue a request for proposals to Boeing and Airbus in a few months and could have a decision by the "turn of the year."
The 787 and A350 are twin-engine midsize jets.
When Airbus announced late last year that it would offer the A350-800 and the A350-900 to customers, they were presented as derivatives of the A330-200 and the bigger A330-300, but with a new and improved wing, greater use of lightweight composites and with the fuel-efficient engines being developed for the 787.
Although the fuselage cross-section of the A350 remains the same as that of the A330, the inside of the fuselage has been revised to provide more room for passengers as well as more seats, Leahy said. By moving the aft pressure bulkhead and relocating the crew rest under the cockpit, the A350-800 will have about 15-18 more seats than the A330-200, Leahy said, and about 30 more seats than the 787-8. The bigger A350-900 is also gaining seats over the A330-300 with the addition of a couple fuselage frames.
Boeing plans three versions of the 787 -- a short-range 787-7, the long-range 787-8 and 787-9, which will be bigger.
Even before the recent changes, the A350-800 and A350-900 were bigger than the 787-8 and 787-9. In a two-class configuration, the 787-9 will seat 258 passengers, or 35 more than the 787-8
Emirates had wanted Boeing to stretch the 787-9 even further, and when Boeing would not, Emirates decided to go with the A350.
Boeing does not want to make the 787-9 too big or it would be competing against its 300-seat 777-200.
"Boeing argues they have a little more headroom on their plane, so we changed the shape of the sidewall to have similar width," Leahy said of the recent A350 changes.
The A350-800, with more seats than the 787-8, will be able to fly about 300 miles farther than the Boeing plane with about 4 percent lower fuel burn per seat and lower maintenance cost per seat, Leahy said. The cash operating costs to the airline per seat will be less than for the 787-8, as will the plane's empty weight per seat, he said.
And not only does the A350-900 beat the 787-9 on any seat-cost comparison, but it is also beats the 777-200, Leahy said.
"We have about same number of seats, and I can fly about same range, within a couple hundred miles, but burn 30 percent less fuel and I'm doing it with a much quieter airplane," Leahy said of the A350-900 versus the 777-200.
Scott Carson, Boeing's jetliner sales chief, said he's not worried about the latest A350 changes.
"We are happy, from both a 787 and 777 point of view, with the tactic they have chosen," he said in an interview at the same airline conference in Tokyo that Leahy attended.
"We think we can hold our own in any toe-to-toe competition."
Taking on the 787 as well as the 777 with the A350 represents a big switch in the Airbus strategy, Carson said.
"We would be pretty happy with that as a 777 competitor," Boeing's Carson said. "The 777 is still preferred by passengers. It is roomy inside and has high ceilings."
Moving the crew rest below the cockpit as Airbus did on the A350 eats up valuable cargo space, Carson said.
"From a 787 view, that's neat because our plane has huge cargo volumes," Carson said. "And from a 777 view, that's an interesting competitive place to be (for Airbus and the A350) because we have the cargo market."
Airbus has lost two recent high-profile campaigns to Boeing that it had been counting on to gain momentum for the A350.
Northwest, the biggest Airbus customer in the United States, rejected the A350 and ordered the 787, even though it operates a growing fleet of A330s.
Air Canada, another important Airbus customer, also rejected the A350 in favor of the 787.
Leahy said if Airbus had been able to offer the A350 in its present form, those campaigns, and others won by the 787, might have turned out different.
"We have been listening to the airlines and going through the design loops," Leahy said.
"Our customers said we should have done this a year ago. But that's water over the dam."
Bring it on, counters Boeing's Carson.
P-I aerospace reporter James Wallace can be reached at 206-448-8040 or jameswallace@seattlepi.com
© 1998-2005 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
thank you
Creak and groan ? Don't like the engine sounds ? Trying flying out of Mpls on NW's DC-10s. They have a grunt that's all their own.
Don't blame the messenger, man! I'm not saying these things bother me or even if I have heard them,, only that I have had these complaints made to me numerous times. As for the DC-10, I haven't been on one in years. I didn't even know that any were still flying.
I'll bet that will include the 'orders' that are part of Airbus's 'investment' in AmericaWest/USAir.
That makes sense. The replaced ones end up in a "slightly-used 777" sales lot.
The current rumors coming out of Boeing is that the company is looking at de-emphasizing the 777-200A/ER models in favor of more 777-200LR and 777-300ER sales. This will allow Boeing to stretch the 787 design even further than the the 787-9 design; the result--using an uprated version of the GENx or Trent 1000 engine--could be a plane that seats almost the same as the 777-200ER but will burn less fuel per passenger and probably have a range as far as 8,000 nautical miles. Of course, the big advantage of the 787 design--namely the improved cabin pressurization system that allows for the equivalent of 6,000 feet altitude at all times--will be part of this extra-stretched 787.
Heh, well they should of decided on that before they lost the Emirates order.
Igorance on your part, and a real need to rip the French. Its made with parts from all of the world, just assembled in France.
I'll just assume you know nothing about aviation, which is evident.
I do not need to know anything about aviation to know that I will do my best to avoid this aircraft.
Better not get on any Boeing planes with any parts not made in the USA. Cause you will never fly. I fly Airbus all the time, good planes, I'll look for you next time I fly overhead.
Are you perhaps confusing the Airbus 350 with the 380? the 350 is AI's (self-described) 767-killer and the 380 is the megajumbo.
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but also will switch to ultra-light aluminum-lithium alloys for the fuselage structure
But arent't those same allows also available to Boeing to use on other models like the 747 Advanced? Isn't it the aluminum producers that have incurred the costs of developing those alloys and quantifying their physical characteristics? In a lot of cases wouldn't the parts made of these alloys, especially skin panels fit into the same places as the older parts they replace?
Boeing has looked at using aluminum-lithium alloys in the past but has shelved the idea for new versions of their older airliners due to the need to change the structural design (a very expensive proposition) to accommodate the metallurgical aspects of Al-Li alloys. I believe that the 787 will use Al-Li alloys along with composite materials, but then the 787 was designed from scratch to use such materials.
That's why Airbus better be careful with the A350 design. If they design a new fuselage to take advantage of Al-Li alloys the development costs will literally soar through the roof and then some--pun intended! Airbus can't afford such extreme expenditures given the cost overruns for the A380 project already.
As with all international duty Airbus equipment: warmed-over 300 series, rushed out, expanded and stretched, then delayed and over-budgeted. The only reason most of them sell is because they are sold at loss prices subsidized by European socialist make work governments.
DC-10s live at Mpls/St. Paul and Memphis.
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and will switch to semi-bleedless (e.g., less bleed air from the engines to drive power accessories in the plane) operation, too.
Why semi bleedless? If they're talking of spending over $7 billion why not go fully bleedless. That would save more weight and have more performance. At this point, what benefits does Airbus get from building a derivative? The fuselage while having the same external dimensions will be different internally than their A300/A310/A330/A340. About the only thing that might be unchanged is the landing gear.
So are those alloys prone to corrosion when they come in contact with dissimilar metal parts? So why not use GLARE instead?
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