The Airbus Industrie supervisory board is to decide whether to authorise managing director Noel Forgeard to begin soliciting airline commitments for the A3XX at an extraordinary meeting planned for 8 December.
If the consortium gets the green light, Forgeard will visit key target customers for the ultra-high capacity airliner and ask them to sign "letters of support" to gauge market demand, according to industry sources. Board approval to make firm offers could then follow in the second quarter of next year.
The plan to pursue letters of support appears to represent a slip in the most recently published programme timetable, which calls for full authorisation by January to seek binding launch commitments from airlines. A source close to the A3XX programme says the possibility of the supervisory board granting full authorisation to offer at next month's meeting "is not being excluded".
Airbus declines to comment on the meeting, but says it is targeting mid-2000 for the launch. If enough customers can be signed, the go-ahead is widely expected to be announced at the Farnborough air show in July, or possibly a month earlier at the Berlin air show.
To make firm offers to airlines, the consortium says it must finalise the A3XX specification and set a unit price, so the "performance level and economics can be assessed by airlines". This also means that the final assembly location must be selected, and workshare allocation, the participation of outside risk-sharing partners and initial production rate, agreed.
The A3XX launch window officially runs until the end of 2000, although final definition of the aircraft is supposed to begin in the middle of the year after a go-ahead decision. The first flight is set for mid-2004 with deliveries a year later. This date has already slipped from mid-2003.
The A3XX is targeted primarily at airlines operating between South-East Asia and Europe and North America. Questions remain over how many carriers will be ready to commit to the 560- to 660-seater during the first half of 2000.
The strongest early potential demand appears to be coming from freight operators. Atlas Air chairman Michael Chowdry recently urged Airbus to launch the freighter before the passenger version. The A3XX freighter is scheduled to enter service two years after the passenger version, in 2007.
Source: Flight International
