Julian Moxon/TOULOUSE Andrew Doyle/FRANKFURT
The Star Alliance members have agreed to develop a standard specification for the Airbus A3XX ultra-large airliner. Lufthansa chairman Jürgen Weber says the A3XX could become the first "Star Alliance aircraft", but insists the German flag carrier will not be among the launch customers for the 555-656-seat aircraft.
Star members make up almost a quarter of the A3XX airline advisory group, including Singapore Airlines, United Airlines, Lufthansa, Air Canada and All Nippon Airways.
Airbus Industrie received its first A3XX launch commitment from Emirates on 30 April, for delivery of five firmly ordered 550-seat A3XX-100s from 2006, plus five options. Two of the A3XXs could be taken as the 150t payload freighter version. The consortium says the race is now on between a "core group of four carriers" to secure first delivery for service entry in October 2005.
The group, believed to include Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Virgin Atlantic and FedEx, are among those visited by Airbus chief executive Noel Forgeard, commercial director John Leahy and A3XX programme chief Jurgen Thomas in a recent tour of potential launch customers.
"Notional price and delivery commitments" were made, enabling Airbus to make preliminary offers before the expected commercial launch of the programme at the Airbus supervisory board meeting on 26 May.
Meanwhile, Airbus is preparing a full-scale mock-up of the A3XX fuselage front half for demonstration to potential customers at Toulouse during the Farnborough air show. This will provide airlines with their first view of possible interior configurations.
In its latest design, the A3XXhas acquired A320-style winglets. Airbus says the specification has advanced to the point where design changes "must be signed off for reliability and maintainability".
Source: Flight International
