Boeing has shelved its 747-500X/600X plans, opting instead to focus on development of the 767-400ERX and 777-200X and 777-300X long-range high-capacity twins. An update of the 747-400 is now a possibility. Boeing Commercial Airplane group "senior officers" decided on the sudden move at a meeting in mid-January, but the announcement was not made public until 20 January. "We just could not make a business case for it," says vice president, product strategy and marketing, Mike Bair.
For the time being, Boeing's ditching of the project leaves the field open to the rival Airbus A3XX, although the US company says that it will continue studying "aeroplanes capable of carrying more passengers than today's 747". Boeing Commercial president Ron Woodard says: "This remains one of the priorities of our product-development efforts. When the market develops for such an aeroplane, we will be ready.
"The small size of the market meant the amount of money we'd have had to spend [on the 747-X], with or without the affect of [route] fragmentation, just did not make sense," says Bair. More than 1,000 employees were working on the -500X/600X project, which was costing almost $3 million a day by early January. Estimated total development cost for the stretched, rewinged aircraft was $7 billion.
"Clearly, we got a different reaction from the airlines than we had expected when we first went out with the proposal," Bair says. Market reaction was subdued by several factors, including Airbus Industrie's decision to accelerate its rival A3XX-100/200 plans, the proposed $200 million-plus price tag, and Boeing's own 777-200X/ 300X proposals. The aircraft itself was not an issue, claims Bair. "The aircraft we ended up with was a good one. The airlines were pretty satisfied with the product we'd defined." He adds that "-we were there" with the targeted 10% reduction in direct operating costs relative to those of the -400.
Despite the "accepted proposals" for up to 15 aircraft from Thai Airways International and Malaysian Airlines, the project did not attract sufficient market interest from US and European majors.
The dust is being blown off earlier product-development studies of 747-400 improvements, as well as more ambitious capacity- and range-increase projects, adds Bair. While fuselage stretches and wing-plug additions are being considered again for the -400, they will not be as dramatic as the changes earmarked for the -500X/600X.
The full effect of the 747-X decision on the engine makers is less certain, although the most obvious impact is on the General Electric-Pratt & Whitney Engine Alliance formed in 1996 to power the new aircraft. A statement says that, "-while the activity leading to certification of the GP7177 has been suspended, the team will continue to support the preliminary design requirements of Boeing and Airbus". The Alliance "-contemplates completing the technical evaluation phase with Airbus [for the A3XX] by the end of February".
Source: Flight International
