Airbus and Boeing vie for victory in the high-capacity market.
After a string of new airliner model go-aheads last year, 1996 has seen the launch of only one new model - the 757-300 - as the major manufacturers concentrated on the definition of new high-capacity models.
Boeing has led the pack with its 747-X studies. The programme gathered momentum during the year, culminating at the Farnborough air show in September with the US manufacturer going public with, but stopping short of launching, the new -500X and -600X models.
The firming-up of Boeing's intentions to develop an almost all-new family of 450- to 550-seat 747 models, based around the airframe of the existing aircraft, also saw some rationalisation in the power plant stakes, with the decision by General Electric and Pratt & Whitney to link up to produce an engine for the new aircraft. The GE-PW Engine Alliance's new GP7000 turbofan will compete against a new offering from Rolls-Royce, the Trent 900.
Meanwhile, Airbus Industrie has been refining its own plans for a "jumbo", the A3XX, which will use the engines being developed for the new 747. A recent decision by Airbus to accelerate A3XX development seems to have disrupted, temporarily at least, Boeing's agenda for securing customers and launching its new programme.
Airbus and Boeing have also been studying developments of other existing products, with the European consortium close to launching its stretched, re-engined A340-600. Boeing, which will fly the stretched 777-300 next year, has also been examining various growth, and long range derivatives of its big twin, but has not yet decided to proceed.
McDonnell Douglas' announcement that it had scrapped plans for a new long-range product, the MD-XX, has again put a question mark over the long-term future of the company in the airliner market. The manufacturer is also struggling to add a second customer for the MD-95 twinjet, since ValuJet launched the programme in October 1995.
At the smaller end of the market, Fokker owner Daimler-Benz Aerospace decided to stop providing funding for the Dutch manufacturer, forcing it into receivership. Unless a take-over deal can be finalised, such as that proposed by South Korea's Samsung, Fokker will close.
Meanwhile, the rationalisation of the European regional manufacturing industry has moved forward with the formal launch in January 1995 of the Toulouse, France-based Aero International (Regional) (AI(R)) consortium. As well as announcing its own plans for a new family of regional-jet aircraft, AI(R) has also been selected to partner China in the development of its own 100-seater, the AE-100.
Source: Flight International
