HAMBURG (dpa) – Both of the world’s dominant plane manufacturers, Boeing in the United States and Airbus Industrie in Europe, are deeply feeling the crisis gripping the aviation sector.
For now, despite all the cancellations and delayed deliveries taking place, both companies still have order book volumes to assure production reaching into the second half of the current decade.
But the crisis is now mirrored these days in, of all places, the sector of the smallest passenger planes. The battle is between the Airbus A318 and Boeing’s 717.
The duel is not only one about prestige, but also one of survival in the segment of 100-seat passenger jets. Lurking in the background and hoping to gain advantage in this are Embraer of Brazil and the German-American group Fairchild Dornier.
Boeing is now in trouble, while Airbus is still optimistic about being able to ride out the current drought in new orders. But Airbus managers freely admit that everyone is “skating on thin ice” in the new battle for market share.
The smallest Airbus is now almost ready to fly. The twin-engine, 31.4-metre long A318 conceived for 107 passengers is to take off on its maiden flight from its Hamburg production site sometime in the second half of January.
Airbus has already booked 136 orders for the new plane, with its official price tag of some 41 million dollars. But there have been no new orders for the plane so far this year.
The main customers for the A318 are Air France (15 planes), British Airways (12) and the two large plane leasing companies ILFC (30) and GECAS (30). But given the financial problems facing a number of U.S. airlines, it is now seriously doubtful whether all the orders will be carried out, aerospace industry sources are saying.
Above all, there are murmurings that the smallest Airbus is, for its class, oversized and too heavy. The A318 is virtually just a scaled-down version of the A319, more than 700 of which have so far been sold, making it a major revenue-earner for Airbus.
Aviation industry analysts believe that the A318 by itself will be difficult to sell on the world market. Its chances will mainly be with those airlines which fly other models in the A320 family.
Airbus is clearly profiting from its concept of the “family philsophy” in which all the versions are similar to each other so that pilots can, at a minimal cost, be retrained to fly virtually all the company’s line of planes.
The cockpits have identical on-board systems, structures and components. This lowers training, operating and maintenance costs, and today is the most marked factor in the European plane company’s success story.
This may be the reason that the short-range twinjet Boeing 717 is threatened to be knocked out of the race even though many experts are convinced it is the more economically feasible plane. It has lower operating costs and has been well-accepted by passengers.
Conceived for 106 passengers, the 717 – which already made its maiden flight on September 2, 1998 – is four to five million dollars cheaper than the A318.
But this last surving remnant of the era of McDonnell Douglas – the 717 was initially conceived as an MD-95 plane and is being made at MDD’s main production plant in Long Beach, California – is regarded as a “stand-alone” product: it has no common features with other Boeing jets.
As a result, this is making the 717 difficult to sell. To date, Boeing has chalked up only 137 sales, with more than 80 deliveries so far. But it is now no longer guaranteed that delivery will be taken on the remaining planes on order.
Boeing has announced that it aims to throttle back production of the plane to only three a month next year due to slack orders. But now the company headquarters in Seattle, Washington may be facing a decision in December whether to proceed at all with any further production of the plane.
The company is still hoping for new customers. A stop to the 717 would mean the final curtains for the last civilian plane product in the proud history of McDonnell-Douglas.
However the Airbus-versus-Boeing battle in small aircraft turns out, both companies have a lot to fear in the competition posed by Embraer and Fairchild Dornier in the promising new 70- to 100-seat passenger plane segment.
The Lufthansa group is going with Fairchild Dornier, while the Swiss regional flyer Crossair has decided on the Embraer jets.
Industry analysts agree that Airbus’ battle against Fairchild Dornier and Embraer for market share in the smaller short-range passenger jets is going to be a tougher one than has been its fight with Boeing in the longer-range planes.
