Airbus to decide on A320 Neo by end of this year

With its hands pretty full with A380 fine tuning and the A350 final assembly plant under construction, Airbus has put the narrow-body replacement project on the back burner.

At this week’s technical press briefing in the UK, executive VP for Programs Tom Williams said that a replacement aircraft in that category is at least 15 years away.

But that’s also partly because the manufacturer has a current product that’s still selling strongly.

And there are also some major technologies that are still in the development stages.

But the manufacturer cannot simply sit on its corporate hands until that time, because customers are demanding the delivery of new engine technology to provide up to 30 per cent in savings.

Importantly too, there are competitors emerging at the lower end of the market, such as Bombardier with its CSeries, and product too from China and Russia (and despite denials possibly from Embraer as well).

The Airbus answer is a possible re-engining of the A320 to provide those savings alongside overall product enhancement to build sales and keep the competitors in their place.

“A lot of people will want to attack what they see as a very strong market,’ said Williams.

“That’s why we got into the engine discussions.

“We don’t want to go with a completely new aeroplane because we think that today’s aeroplane is a very good one and we want to capture the capability that is available with the best engine technology today.

“We have not finalized a business case because there is still a lot of discussion to go on… (in terms of the) overall economics.

“What are the performance guarantees that the engine manufacturers are prepared to sign up to?

“Are we convinced that that performance can be delivered?

“Can that performance be delivered without sacrificing other parameters like maintenance costs, because if we stretch the technology of the materials to the absolute limit then will that make what’s possible on an aircraft that’s doing two or three cycles a day become impossible when the aircraft’s doing eight or nine cycles a day?

“We need to make sure that for the different types of customer profile that we’ve got for the single-aisle aircraft that all of these parameters can be addressed.

“So there are many technical questions, there are a number of commercial questions about how we would place such an aeroplane in the market, there’s quite a bit of a business case still to go through.

“It’s not a done deal but I personally think it’s the right thing for us to try and do.”

Airbus says it will make a decision on the A320 Neo proposal prior to the close of this year.

Meanwhile, commenting significantly on that emerging competition in the single-aisle sector of the market Williams was on the front foot:

“China will develop its own programs, there’s no doubt about this, with strong government support from the top.

“But we believe that the Chinese market is big enough for several people to compete.

“The CSeries is certainly there at the bottom of the range, but we have to make sure that we’re not complacent, because I imagine that once they’ve established a niche there they’ll move to roll up through the rest of the product.

“So I think you’ll see us reacting very strongly to that.

“We want to make sure that we don’t allow them to build significant market penetration.

“And that’s what we are doing with the re-engining program, because clearly with that aircraft we are going to bring something with a lot more capacity, a lot more range etc.”