Given the highly public differences between Airbus Industrie and Boeing over the existence, or otherwise, of a multi-billion-dollar market for a new large airliner, you could be forgiven for thinking that a yawning gulf exists between long-term forecasts from the two manufacturers. In fact, this is not so.
There is almost full agreement on the basic trends within the world air market over the next 20 years. Both companies agree that passenger traffic should average growth of around 5%, representing something like a trebling of numbers. The two forecasts peg the market for passenger aircraft at around 15,500 jet airliners, reaching an identical figure of $1.1 trillion for the total market value.
Neither is there any question over the critical importance of the fast-growing Asia-Pacific market, especially for the launch of any new large aircraft programme. Where the difference lies in attempts to double-guess how this crucial market will develop.
Boeing chief executive Phil Condit admits that it was the lack of a clear case for the proposed 747-X in the Pacific which contributed to the decision to abandon the project earlier this year.
The basic argument is that developments on transpacific routes will mirror the experience on the North Atlantic, where deregulation and competition have led to a drive for increased frequencies and new direct point-to-point services, rather than simply pushing up capacity on existing inter-hub services. The result is that the average aircraft size has fallen below the 300-seat mark over the past decade.
Boeing's hunch is that the next wave of transpacific growth will follow a similar path, creating demand for aircraft in the 777 class, rather than for the 747, and higher. The need for larger aircraft will come after 2010 as the effects of sheer volumes of passengers and airport capacity limits begin to bite.
In consequence, Boeing outlines a relatively small market for 500-seaters, amounting to only 480 aircraft over the next 20 years. By comparison, the 747-400 class will have another 700 aircraft. If unchallenged, Boeing, therefore, would presumably be left turning out a healthy average of three 747s a month.
Condit does not discount an eventual return to the large-aircraft market, but expects it to be a "very long time" before another such proposal comes up for approval.
Airbus dismisses this pessimism as sour grapes and remains bullish that it can succeed in making a business case for its $8 billion 555-seat A3XX programme where the 747 derivative failed.
The consortium believes that talk of growth being dominated by direct point-to-point services and hub by-pass is largely overdone. Chief strategist Adam Brown concedes that US and European liberalisation did produce a spurt of new route openings in the 1980s, but argues that the majority came in domestic or regional markets rather than as intercontinental-hub by-pass services. The pace of new-route development has since slowed, he says.
Brown adds that, even building a "generous" increase in frequencies into its model, the Airbus forecast still arrived at the inescapable need for a larger aircraft in the Asia-Pacific region. The area is already having to battle to keep airport capacity in line with growth rates even before the projected trebling of passenger traffic.
The average seating capacity of aircraft in the Asia-Pacific fleet is already close to 240 seats. By comparison, the present world average stands at fewer than 180 seats and is expected to climb to only 235 by the year 2016. By then, Airbus estimates that the Asia-Pacific fleet will have reached an average of 338 seats, which alone implies a healthy number of aircraft above the size of 747s. Brown suggests that the 747 is already too small for many transpacific and Europe-Asia routes.
Airbus admits that the demand will be concentrated on a handful of major routes - Boeing had suggested fewer than 500 in its 747X studies - but argues that this is no bar to selling large numbers of aircraft. Similar concentration has not stopped the 747, he points out.
Two-thirds of today's 747 fleet of just under 800 aircraft serves only 20 hub airports, with more than half in the Asia-Pacific region. Some 130 aircraft are on just 15 major city pairs and Airbus believes that these routes alone would need 250 A3XX-sized aircraft by 2016.
Overall, Airbus estimates that 74 airlines in the world will need aircraft bigger than the 747, with a total demand of 1,440. One-third of those airlines, and more than half of the aircraft deliveries, would be to carriers in Asia-Pacific and China. The conservative business case being presented to Airbus partners assumes that the A3XXwould account for at least 650 sales.
Airbus, however, has still to answer the question of why the A3XXwill succeed where Boeing failed in making a business case. John Leahy, who heads Airbus sales, points to the advantages of a new design, including the ability to use existing airport infrastructures and the offer of a 15% improvement in direct operating costs. More importantly he argues that that a new aircraft design tends to get airline executives re-assessing their networks, in the same way that they did with the launch of the original 747 some 30 years ago.
In short, Airbus believes that the world is ready for another step change in aircraft capacity, but Boeing believes that it should wait a while. Ultimately, such decisions may have more to do with faith than with hard figures alone.
Source: Flight International
