Engine Alliance has been given a boost by Airbus in its battle with Rolls-Royce on the A380 after the airframer officially recognised a further improvement in the GP7200-powered version's fuel burn.
"In April we received a nice boost from Airbus, which gave our fuel burn advantage over the competition further validation when it revised the 'Orange Book' performance handbook to give us an additional 0.5% credit," says Engine Alliance president Mary Ellen Jones.
She says that this was on top of the 1% credit that Engine Alliance already has. "So this puts us 1.5% ahead of our own specification to Airbus. So in our view we are 1.5% ahead of the competition."
Airbus's A380 marketing chief Richard Carcaillet confirms the Orange Book adjustment, saying that the airframer wanted to reflect the improved performance over the original specification that the GP7200-powered aircraft now that sufficient in-service data has been accumulated.
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Source: Flight Daily News
