Boeing 777X - credit Boeing
BATTLE FOR THE SKIES The rivalry between Airbus and Boeing is as fierce as ever as they compete in a fast-growing market. Murdo Morrison, Editor, Flight International, reports.
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here is little love lost between the world’s two manufacturers of large passenger aircraft. Europe’s Airbus and the USA’s Boeing are building huge backlogs stretching into the 2020s as demand for their products soars. This is thanks to emerging middle classes in markets like China, Latin America and South East Asia, flying for the first time, but also to airlines in their traditional backyards of Europe and North America, refreshing fleets after more than a decade of retrenchment. In terms of orders, their market shares dip and flip, but have remained at roughly 50/50 over recent years, with Airbus edging it in narrowbodies; Boeing in larger, twin-aisle aircraft. However, forget notions of a cosy duopoly; rivalry between the two beasts of aerospace remains intense. In the single-aisle sector, Toulouse and Seattle have directly compet8 Industry Europe
ing products. Each abandoned proposals for all-new narrowbodies to replace their best-selling A320 and 737 families a few years back. Instead, they opted to re-engine, with their repowered types due in service in 2015 and 2017 respectively: Boeing stuck with its incumbent engine supplier, CFM International, which has designed a successor to its CFM56 – the LEAP – promising 15 per cent fuel savings over the current 737; Airbus is offering a choice of the LEAP or a geared turbofan from Pratt & Whitney for its A320neo. In twin-aisle aircraft – a smaller but more lucrative segment for the airframers – the dynamics are different. The two airframers have gone down divergent paths – and each vociferously claims their plan is right. Boeing’s line-up is based around two families of aircraft – the recently-introduced 787 Dreamliner, with three variants catering for 210 to 335 pas-
sengers, and the larger 777, which carries 310 to around 400 passengers. The 777-300ER is already the airplane of choice of most longhaul airlines and Boeing launched its successor – the 777X – at last November’s Dubai air show, with a flurry of orders from the big Gulf airlines and others. Seattle’s strategy appears to be working at the other end of the widebody spectrum too. After a difficult gestation – with entry into service delayed by two years because of problems resulting from an overstretched supply chain, and a grounding following a series of battery fires early last year – the all-composite Dreamliner is ramping up production. At July’s Farnborough air show, Boeing presented the 787-9 stretch variant, which has just gone into service with Air New Zealand. A further stretch, the -10, will follow into service in 2016. The only slow-seller in Boeing’s portfolio is the 747-
