ILA 2008: Replacement Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 narrowbodies to take longer than planned

The prospective dates for the launch of replacement narrowbody jets to take the place of the current Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 families may not now appear until 2020 according to both airframers and enginemakers at ILA, Berlin's air show.

Until recently, 2012 was widely touted as the most likely time for the new airliners to be introduced.  However, this timeframe has gradually extended, in tandem with the amount of Airbus and Boeing R&D money currently being invested in turning the 737 and A320 families into ‘new generation’ airliners.

Currently both the 737 and A320 ranges of airliners are selling well with constantly updated technology and the world’s major engine makers aren’t yet ready to come up with suitable game-changing powerplants. 

These will need to provide a series of huge percentage gains, demanded by the airlines, in terms of emissions, noise, specific fuel consumption and maintainability.

Airbus’ president and CEO Tom Enders said yesterday he agreed with Boeing that the earliest timeframe was “the end of the 2019/2020 period” and Rolls-Royce Germany’s MD engineering, Norbert Arndt agreed – getting in a dig at Pratt & Whitney’s geared turbo fan (GTF) concept at the same time.

“The GTF isn’t causing me any sleepless nights”, he said, “as I prefer to listen to Boeing’s comment that the next generation of narrow body airliners will require ‘back to the drawing board’ thinking and this will need open rotor technology if we’re going to deliver the percentage improvements that the marketplace is demanding.”

“Developing our current engines has meant that we haven’t invested much time or R&D money into this concept over the past 20 years – but now we are looking seriously at open rotors as we believe that the technology is now at a stage where everything can be brought together without having any ‘show-stoppers’.”

According to Rolls-Royce, and despite external pressures, growth in air travel remains robust with an average growth forecast of around 5% a year over the next 20 years, while fuel costs are now typically between 30% and 40% of direct operating costs for airlines.

Rolls-Royce believes that to achieve the ACARE targets for CO₂ (50% reduction), NO_x (80% reduction) and noise (halve perceived noise) by 2020 it will be necessary to build engines featuring open rotor technology if targets for noise and SFC are to be achieved.

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Source: Flight Daily News