Max Kingsley-Jones/LONDON
Boeing has built every one of the 1,250 400-seat airliners delivered over the past 30 years. But from now on, the US manufacturer faces the uncomfortable prospect of a rival. Armed with pledges from nine customers for more than 60 A3XXs, Airbus Industrie is gathering itself to surge forward with its $12 billion, 550-seater programme.
While the US manufacturer has a relatively pessimistic forecast for future large aircraft demand, Airbus believes the sector has a bright future, and is expected to confirm its head-to-head move with Boeing later this year.
Boeing's market forecast says that increasing deregulation worldwide will see the proliferation of network "fragmentation", which will boost demand for frequencies, rather than individual aircraft capacity. This favours aircraft smaller than the 747. Boeing forecasts that about 930 aircraft (including 200 freighters) in the large category (ie 400-seats and larger) will be needed over the next 20 years. Most of these (565) will be 747-sized, and the rest (365) will have over 500 seats.
Network fragmentation has been happening on the transatlantic market since the 1980s, driven largely by the arrival of the long-range, 200-300-seat twinjets such as the Boeing 767 and Airbus A310. Further expansion of this phenomenon - particularly across the Pacific - will see airlines adding frequencies and more direct long-haul flights to and from secondary cities.
Airbus acknowledges there will be fragmentation, but has reservations about the air transport infrastructure's ability to accommodate the level of frequency growth predicted by Boeing. As such, Airbus is adamant that the airlines will have no choice but to introduce a 550-seater sooner rather than later, and it puts demand at 1,200 aircraft up to 2018. This business would generate more than one-fifth of the $1.2 billion worth of airliner deliveries over the next 20 years, says Airbus, which expects cargo airlines to need about 300 large freighter aircraft.
The rivals disagree over both the size and the timing of demand. Their differing views on fragmentation means they have assumed different levels of air traffic growth - the increase in the number of flights being made. Boeing is more optimistic that great strides will be made in airport and air traffic infrastructure, estimating that flights will increase by over 120%, compared with the European view of about 95%.
Impact of congestion
"Given the level of congestion and flight delays, the severe environmental constraints on runway development and the lagging investment in new air traffic systems, the achievement of a 95% increase in flights is a very substantial challenge," says Adam Brown, Airbus vice-president for forecasting and market development. "If this growth isn't achieved, even more large aircraft will be needed than we forecast."
According to Brown, the rationale for the A3XX is based on expectations that airlines will have to provide 47% more seats over the next 20 years to cope with the travel explosion. "If there is no A3XX, these demands will simply not be met," he says. Brown predicts that most (560) of the 1,200 airliners needed over the next 20 years will be in the 500-seat category, while 370 600-seaters and 230 800-seaters will be required. Certain dense routes, such as in the Japanese domestic market, will require 1,000-seaters, with demand put at 48 aircraft.
While fragmentation on the North Atlantic is relatively mature, Boeing believes there are huge opportunities across the Pacific. This market, and the Europe-Asia sector, are where much of the demand for A3XX-sized aircraft is expected. "US domestic hubs have few Asian connections, but there are many opportunities to expand networks now that the right sized [300-400-seat] aircraft are available," says Randy Baseler, Boeing vice-president for marketing. "This is true of Europe-Asia, where only the main gateways are linked to Asian points."
Boeing's laid-back approach to Airbus' A3XX effort can be attributed to two key points. Firstly, the US firm can afford to wait before deciding to move and still match the A3XX schedule with a derivative 747X model. Secondly, it does not expect much of the demand to materialise as quickly as Airbus does.
"We believe that only 360 deliveries will be in the A3XX category [over 500 seats], and demand won't really begin until towards the end of this decade," says Baseler. "Of the 360 aircraft, we see only 80 deliveries in the first 10 years [1999-2008]."
Nobody knows if Airbus will be proved right or Boeing's fragmentation argument will prevail. Clearly, Airbus sees the A3XX as its destiny, while Boeing would be much happier keeping the market to itself - and these different agendas will have influenced their market outlooks. The next 10 years will be enthralling, and whichever gets it wrong could find its mistake costly.
Source: Flight International
