Airbus Industrie is building a business case for launching the A3XX based on prospects of winning around 650 orders for the programme over the next 20 years, says John Leahy senior vice-president Commercial.
The comments came as Airbus and Boeing used the release of long-range forecasts to justify their conflicting arguments over the likely market for an airliner of more than 400 seats.
The Airbus forecast outlines a potential need for more than 1,400 aircraft larger than the existing Boeing 747-400, creating a market worth around $275 billion over the next two decades. Leahy concedes, however, that some of that potential demand may in practice be filled by other aircraft, including a fresh Boeing offering, and says that the A3XX business case being prepared for the Airbus partners assumes a lower figure.
Boeing, which pulled the plug on its planned 747-5/600 offerings at the start of the year, continues to argue that the market for a new large aircraft is unproven. It sees total demand for aircraft of more than 500 seats standing at no more than 480, while over the same period, the 400-seat market will account for 700 aircraft. Boeing continues to argue that the market for a new large airliner leans heavily slanted towards the second half of its forecast period, as capacity constraints begin to bite on major intercontinental routes.
Airbus believes that this underestimates the airport congestion already threatening to constrain growth in the Asian market, which is expected to account for more than half of sales of aircraft of above 500 seats.
Leahy adds that the introduction of the A3XX, like that of the 747 in the late 1960s, will "create its own demand" as airlines look at new opportunities opened up by a new 550-seat aircraft.
The Airbus forecast identifies 74 airlines which will need an aircraft bigger than the 747-400 and says that 21 of these carriers will require more than 20 aircraft each.
Airbus is working with a group of 19 airlines to firm up plans for the A3XX. FedEx has already expressed interest in taking ten all-cargo versions and, in late 1996 hosted a working party looking at A3XX freighter and combi designs.
The aim is to have the initial A3XX-100, with 555 seats and a 14,150km (7,650nm) range, in service by 2003 with a price tag of $198 million in current dollars. A 655-seat A3XX-200 and long-range 16,200km A3XX-100R version would follow.
Leahy says that Airbus has signed up risk-sharing partners from Asia and Europe, believed to include Italy's Alenia and South Korean aerospace companies, to take on 20-25%of the $8 billion development programme.
Source: Flight International
