Heavyweight stand-off

The battle between Boeing and Airbus continues to dominate the aviation industry but major programmes at both companies are struggling to make decisive breakthroughs. Murdo Morrison, editor of Flight International, reports.

Like two heavyweights slugging it out over 15 rounds, the contest between the world’s big two airliner manufacturers has during the past decade seen both Airbus and Boeing land damaging blows on their opponent, but neither punch their way to domination. Although the European and US giants have adopted distinct product strategies, no single programme has proved such a success – or failure – as to send one or other onto the ropes. July’s Farnborough air show was the latest round in the finelybalanced struggle, with both airframers flying flagship products in the aerial display and keen to show that they have the edge when it comes to technology and market appeal.

Boeing’s decision 10 years ago to abandon the Sonic Cruiser – a super-speedy replacement for its 757 and 767 widebodies – and instead develop an all-composite, highly-efficient airliner appeared to make sense as oil prices soared in the 2000s, and the 787 Dreamliner became the fastestselling type of all time. It still looks wise, but Boeing’s original move to outsource complex design and production elements to a global supply chain delayed the programme’s service three years to 2011 and cost it money. The Dreamliner is unlikely to make a profit for the US airframer until the 2020s.

Airbus’s 550-seat, double-deck A380 has been the other most adventurous launch of the 21st century, but – while the ultra-highcapacity, hub-connecting superjumbo is proving a key asset for the likes of Emirates and Singapore Airlines – Airbus is struggling to hit 300 orders, its target by the end of this year. Wing cracks discovered in early examples in service have also added to Toulouse’s headaches. Boeing’s rival in the segment, the 747-8 – a stretched version of its iconic jumbo jet – is enjoying modest success in the freight market but has yet to achieve a breakthrough as a passenger aircraft.

Boeing still has another ace up its sleeve: the potential of developing its highly successful 777, still selling strongly a decade-and-a-half after its service entry. Thanks to the cost of fuel, the large twinjet family has already seen off one competitor, the thirstier, four-engined Airbus A340, and Boeing should be able to adapt the design to meet any challenge from larger versions of the planned A350. Airbus’s answer to the 787 is in production and, in terms of orders, has made a promising start. However, its entry into service, originally set for next year, has just been put back from the first half to the second six months of 2014.

This comes after long and expensive delays to both the A380 in the middle of the decade

Boeing 737 Max

and the Airbus Military A400M, a large, propeller-driven transporter commissioned by a number of European governments and for which Airbus has bullish export hopes despite pressures on domestic defence spending. The latest six-monthly financial results for Airbus’s parent EADS shows that the stalling of the A350 programme is scarcely a crisis, with the aerospace and defence group notching up impressive revenues, profits and order intake. This has been down largely to a solid performance in its Eurocopter helicopter and Astrium space divisions, but particularly at Airbus, where global economic uncertainty has hardly dented demand for airliners.

Re-engined workhorses

One of the main reasons Airbus can appear so smug is its early decision not to develop an all-new replacement for its narrowbody A320 family and instead offer a “new engine option” or Neo. Powered by new-generation Pratt & Whitney PW100G or CFM International LEAP engines, and due to enter service in 2015, the A320neo has proved a huge success for Airbus, with airlines keen to get their hands on an improved-performance version of the narrowbody workhorse that does not carry the risks of an all-new programme. The why-reinvent-the-wheel move has meant Airbus can put off the costly investment in a completely fresh narrowbody design until the 2020s.

Boeing has followed suit, with the 737 Max – a re-engined version of its venerable singleaisle airliner powered by the CFM LEAP. But until the Paris air show in June 2011, Seattle was still toying with the idea of leap-frogging its rival by announcing a completely new narrowbody. After the expensive gestation of the 787, it was a gamble too far for Boeing’s board, which went for the safer option instead. Although the Max has also got off to a strong start, it will not enter service until 2017 – two years after the A320neo – and firm orders after Farnborough stood at 659, less than half the 1,429 notched up by its Airbus rival.

Airbus has also cocked another snook at its competitor, announcing plans this year for its first assembly facility in the USA, in Mobile, Alabama, to build A320s. The factory will take pressure off production lines in Toulouse and Hamburg, but the real intent is to plant a symbolic flag on US soil. Although sister company Eurocopter manufactures in nearby Misssissippi, Airbus’s decision comes heaped with pleasing irony. The European company had originally promised to open a factory in Mobile if it won the US Air Force’s refuelling tanker contest. It lost – thanks partly to vigorous lobbying by supporters of rival Boeing, including politicians from Kansas who had been promised a facility in Wichita if Boeing won. Boeing was selected but has gone back on its commitment to Wichita, and next year will close its plant in a city where it has had an association for 85 years. Regional and business jets

The safety-first decisions by Airbus and Boeing to evolve – rather than revolutionise – their single-aisle offerings has not made it any easier for Bombardier. The Canadian company is the first Western airframer to challenge the almost two-decade-long duopoly for airliners of 100 seats and above. Bombardier’s CSeries – due to enter service late next year – has received only around 150 orders, enough to keep production lines busy for the first few years but hardly a groundswell of support. The CSeries remains an enormous gamble for a company reliant on the world’s most successful range of business jets and an ageing lineup of smaller regional jets and turboprops.

Bombardier’s rival in regional jets, Brazil’s Embraer, looks in a strong position with its more modern family of 70-to 90-seat E-Jets. These short-range shuttles are still in demand among airlines in emerging regions in particular, on routes too thin to make an A320 or 737 economic. Embraer has also ventured into

business jets, launching four all-new aircraft and two executive variants of its regional jets in the past few years. The Brazilian company is in addition trying to grow its defence segment, with a military airlifter, the KC-390, a jet-engined rival to Lockheed Martin’s C-130J. It has even enlisted the help of Boeing to help it investigate export opportunities.

Embraer – which went from being an obscure third world producer to the world’s number four airframer in a little over 10 years – is seen as a model to emulate by manufacturers in other countries. Just more than a decade after BAE Systems, Fokker and Saab all exited the regional jet market, Japan’s Mitsubishi, China’s Comac and Russia’s Sukhoi have sub-100-seat offerings on the market. While the Mitsubishi Regional Jet is a one-off, China and Russia both have ambitions to revamp their moribund commercial aircraft industries with new families of commercial jets which will appeal to domestic and foreign carriers, of which the Comac ARJ21 and Sukhoi Superjet 100 are the entry points.

Of the two, Russia is off to the more positive start. The Superjet is being marketed outside the former Soviet Union by Sukhoi’s joint venture partner, Italy’s Alenia Aeronautica. Several other Western suppliers, including French engine-maker Snecma, are deeply involved in the programme. Russia already has an established network of design centres, assembly plants and suppliers which have been producing airliners since the post-war era. China, on the other hand, has proved itself more open to direct investment by Western companies. Airbus has an assembly plant in the country and Chinese suppliers build components for Airbus and Boeing programmes. Russia, for reasons of pride rather than pragmatism, has begun from the premise that its creaking domestic industry can be rejuvenated, rather than requiring complete restructuring from the ground up.

Business aviation continues to suffer from sluggish demand in its traditional markets of the USA and Europe. However, in emerging markets such as China, the Middle East and Africa, the newly ultra-wealthy have been discovering the benefits of direct and discreet private aviation, favouring larger, longer-range types over the smaller executive shuttles that have been the mainstay of America’s corporate travel infrastructure since the 1960s. This has benefited brands such as Dassault’s Falcon, Bombardier’s Challengers and Globals and Gulfstream, as well as corporate variants of the A320 and 737, which have gained at the expense of the smaller Cessna Citation, Hawker and Bombardier Learjet ranges.

On the defence side, constrained defence budgets in the USA and Europe have largely put the brakes on aircraft development. In Europe – with the main new programmes such as the Eurofighter Typhoon and A400M largely budgeted for – the effect on the industry has been less dramatic than stateside, where cutbacks are likely to lead directly to factory closures and tens of thousands of lost jobs. Asia (though not China of course) remains the biggest prize for Europe’s defence industry, with France’s Dassault notching up its first export contract for the Rafale fighter jet –with India. Brazil, Gulf countries and nations in south-east Asia are also high on the target list for contractors.

Future technologies

With all-new narrowbodies, supersonic commercial jets and many expensive, cutting-edge defence projects such as unmanned combat aircraft off the launch agenda and confined to design office studies until next decade, the main emphasis when it comes to new technology has been on fuel. With the big three engine manufacturers, Rolls-Royce, Pratt & Whitney and General Electric making evolutionary rather than revolutionary advances in propulsion know-how, it has been the airlines themselves that have driven innovation, with a number of trials being carried out over the past two years with hybrid biofuel mixes being used to power jet engines.

As for the next generation of engineers who will deliver the technological breakthroughs of the 2020s and 2030s, well, the industry is crying out for them. Just as airlines are preparing for a dearth of pilots, a shortage of skilled engineering graduates is one of the biggest challenges facing Europe’s – and the world’s – aerospace companies. At the Farnborough air show, Airbus was running a recruitment fair with the promise of rewarding careers in France, Germany, Spain, the UK or beyond. For all the growing popularity of aviation as a way to travel, it seems that not enough young people are being captivated by the opportunity to design the products that will help the world to fly. n