When it comes to re-engined narrowbodies, Boeing may trail Airbus by almost 1,000 orders – but the US manufacturer is confident it will recover ground when it comes to the all-important delivery cycle.
Buoyed by recent gains in market share as single-aisle production rates rise, Boeing expects its 737 Max family to be a match for the Airbus A320neo in the longer term. And Seattle is already examining how it could tap a potential new market between today’s single-aisles and the smaller widebody types.
“We feel very confident that in terms of [single-aisle] delivery market share, we’re going to be at 50/50 long term,” says John Wojick, Boeing’s senior vice president, global sales and marketing.
While conceding that the A320neo currently has “almost 1,000 more orders” than the 737 Max, Wojick suggests that the 737 Max backlog could be less risky.
“[Airbus] customers have ordered more [A320neos] than [the number of single-aisle airplanes] they operate today. Our customers have ordered fewer airplanes than they operate today,” he tells Flightglobal. “I feel really good about the fact that our customers are going to be here for us and we’re going to be able to deliver that backlog. I think it would be an interesting study to figure out how solid is their backlog.”
Although Airbus has been top dog in single-aisle production in recent years, Boeing has been gradually closing the gap. According to Flightglobal’s Ascend Fleets database, last year Airbus’s lead was cut to just 16 aircraft (excluding military production) – and over the first four months of 2015 Boeing was actually ahead by a single unit.
The first 737 Max is due to be delivered to launch operator Southwest Airlines in the third quarter of 2017, which is almost two years after shipments of the A320neo are due to begin. Wojick attributes some of Airbus’s backlog advantage to fact that it is starting deliveries of its re-engined family so much earlier than Boeing.
“Airbus loves to talk about backlog and other items,” says Wojick. “What really counts in this game is how many single-aisle airplanes are delivered in a given year – that’s when Boeing and our competitor get paid for market share.
“Since 2012 we’ve been very close to parity in single-aisle airplanes. We plan on doing that for a long, long time,” he adds. “My goal is to be the leader in aviation and to make sure that our delivery market share is 50% going forward – or better.”
The 737 Max programme is progressing towards a maiden sortie next year, and flight-testing of the new CFM International Leap-1B engine that will power the aircraft began on 29 April. Wojick dismisses industry rumours that the engine is behind fuel-burn targets, saying that CFM “is absolutely tracking to their plan” on the Leap-1B.
“We’re confident that they’re going to be very, very successful in meeting the commitments they made to us, and obviously we’ll be able to meet our commitments to our customers on the fuel burn improvement,” he says. “In fact we’re hopeful we’ll be able to exceed them.”
And with the ink barely dry on the Max design, Boeing is already turning its attention to how it could address the much-vaunted “757 replacement market” – an aircraft in the size and range sector between the A320/737 and the Airbus A330/Boeing 787.
“We’ve spent a bit of time over the last year talking to awful lot of operators about what they’re interested in,” says Wojick. “And what they’re interested in is an airplane substantially larger than today’s single-aisles that can fly thousands of miles further. From my perspective, neither manufacturer offers an airplane in that size category.”
Boeing sees a market crystallising for an airplane “roughly 20% larger than a 757-200 that could fly 20% further”, but offering economics to match the re-engined single-aisles currently in development.
“That’s a real challenge,” says Wojick. “There’s a market requirement out there that’s of interest to us and we need to look at how Boeing might be able to satisfy the demand that’s out there.”
The airlines are keen for the early development of such an aircraft, but Wojick says the soonest Boeing could realistically offer something is “probably the 2024-2025 timeframe”. He adds that there are still many questions to answer, not least of which is the matter of the fuselage cross-section.
“How we do that, and whether it’d be single aisle or dual aisle, we haven’t figured out yet,” he says. “That’s a real challenge – how do you offer single-aisle economics with a little more comfort than people see in the 737 Max today?”
Source: Airline Business
