Airbus Industrie Asia (AIA) and Aviation Industries of China (AVIC) have agreed to launch pre-development work on the AE31X project in March, before any final joint venture business agreement and without the active participation of Singapore Technologies Aerospace (ST Aero).
A joint team is to be established in Toulouse to begin a detailed definition of the new family of regional aircraft.
The pre-development phase is to run for 18 months and is intended to lead to the launch of full scale development in 1999. Work will focus on refining the aircraft's design and systems to enable the planned Sino-European joint venture to offer the aircraft to airlines. Priority will be given to the smaller 95- to 105-seat AE316 version to compete against the Boeing 717.
AIA and AVIC hope to finalise long-running negotiations on a range of issues in the interim, the most critical of which are technology transfer and workshare.
The original intention had been to reach an overall agreement by the end of 1997, but, with discussions continuing, it has been decided to proceed with the next phase to avoid further delay to the aircraft's planned entry into service in mid-2003.
"We anticipate creating the joint venture during the pre-development phase," says a programme official and, in the meantime, "-we can work on the product jointly without a legal entity". Selection of the AE3IX's landing gear and powerplant is expected towards the end of the pre-development phase.
The decision to start pre-development work ahead of a final agreement has not met with the support of ST Aero, which had planned to take a 15% stake in the venture. ST has indicated that it is not prepared to commit any more resources to the project before a business case is established.
"Our position is that we remain interested, but we can't see if the terms are right," says an ST official. "Until they are clear, we're not going to spend more money. The company, for now, will become an 'observer'."
Source: Flight International
