2006 Orders: Airbus vs. Boeing

[Kai Tak]

For 2005 Orders & Commitments: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=166166

Happy New Years everyone! Time for a new order thread, the other was getting too big. So I'll start it by repeating the only news posted thus far in January:

Airbus Wins $1 Bln Bangkok Airways Order For 6 A350s

Jan. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Airbus SAS, the world's biggest maker of commercial aircraft, won an order from Bangkok Airways Co. Ltd. for six A350 airliners, valued at about $1 billion at list prices, as the Thai carrier adds routes to Europe.

The contract brings Airbus's total orders and commitments for the planned 257- to 297-seat airliner to 170 planes for 13 customers, the Toulouse, France-based planemaker said in a faxed statement. Bangkok Airways, which operates Thailand's second- biggest fleet of airliners, will choose a 258-seat configuration and take delivery of the planes starting in 2012, Airbus said.

Bangkok Airways said in November that it was choosing between the A350 and Boeing Co.'s 787 for a 24 billion baht ($582 million) order for six fuel-efficient long-range planes. Winning that competition probably won't keep Airbus from being overtaken by Chicago-based Boeing in orders this year for the first time since 2000. As of Nov. 30, Boeing had 800 orders and Airbus had 687.

Boeing is counting on the 787, which it says will use 20 percent less fuel than current models, to regain market share from Airbus by 2008. Airbus took the top spot in airliner deliveries in 2003.

The A350 is scheduled to go into commercial service in 2010 and lists from about $160 million to $167 million apiece. Catalogue prices don't take into account discounts that airlines receive when buying multiple planes. Airbus's statement today didn't give a price for the Bangkok Airways order.

200-Order Target

Airbus had been targeting 200 orders for the A350 by the end of 2005 after the planemaker's two owners, European Aeronautic, Defence & Space Co. and BAE Systems Plc, approved the project in October.

Contracts for the model have included a 20-plane order in November from US Airways Group Inc., the A350's first order from a U.S. carrier, and a 12-airliner purchase by American International Group Inc.'s International Lease Finance Corp. plane-leasing division last month.

Boeing's order book for the 787 as of the end of November was 241 planes for 20 customers. The model, with a range of about 8,500 nautical miles (15,700 kilometers), is scheduled to enter commercial service in 2008. Its catalogue price range is between $132 million and $150.5 million, depending on the version.

Mike Bair, head of the 787 program, said Dec. 22 that Boeing may develop a stretched version of the 787 with 300 seats, compared with an original design of seating for between 250 and 290 passengers.

Shares of European Aeronautic, Defence & Space Co., the 80 percent owner of Airbus, fell 67 cents, or 2.1 percent, to 31.90 euros in Paris. Boeing fell 94 cents to $70.24 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.

[New York Yankee]

Why Airbus vs Boeing? Boeing vs. Airbus sounds many better..

[Monkey]

^ Maybe because "A" comes before "B"?

[mr_storms]

ya. It will be intersting so see if SQ picks 787 or a350

[Kai Tak]

Originally Posted by mr_storms

ya. It will be intersting so see if SQ picks 787 or a350

I like Airbus a lot more than Boeing, but even I'm for certain Singapore Airlines will be buying 787s.

Some recent news about that order:

Singapore Airlines Not Ready To Pull Trigger On Boeing Order

Geoffrey Thomas - ATW Online - 26/12/05

Singapore Airlines hosed down media speculation that it is about to order 80 aircraft from Boeing made up of 777-200LRs, 787s and 747-8Fs. SIA has issued three RFPs--one for 19-hr. nonstop capability, one for A350/787 regional capability and the third for high capacity in the A380/747-8 range.

The A350/787 battle has been the most intense and a decision had been expected on all three RFPs by mid-December. However, CEO Chew Choon Seng told ATWOnline in November that it had been delayed until late January at the earliest as new data on the Trent-powered A350 was considered.

An SIA spokesperson told this website last Friday that a February timeline is more likely. ATWOnline understands that Boeing and Airbus have left Singapore after presenting the latest sets of figures and that negotiations are ongoing, with key airline executives now on leave.

[Desven]

good to see that the world's biggest airplane company still kicks ass!!

[TipNTop]

Airbus won an order from Air Deccan for 30 more A320 (total: 62 firm orders from Air Deccan for A320's).

[Kai Tak]

Hamburg International Poised To Buy A319s

Flight International - 3/1/06

German charter specialist Hamburg International is poised to order 14 Airbus A319s and place options on six more, signalling a switch from its Boeing 737-700 fleet.

Hamburg International is preparing to announce a complete fleet-renewal programme in January and will replace its Boeing fleet with A319s, say industry sources. The new Airbus aircraft are due to enter the fleet from 2008.

Ten A319s are set for Hamburg International operations, while four are bound for use by a joint venture initiative with a tour operator partner outside Europe. The airline and Airbus decline to comment.

[Kai Tak]

Aeroflot Leans Towards Boeing 787 Selection

Flight International - 3/1/06

Russia’s Aeroflot has selected the Boeing 787 over the Airbus A350 to renew its long-haul fleet and is working towards striking a deal with the US airframer.

Business newspaper Kommersant is reporting Aeroflot and the US manufacturer are already discussing the delivery schedule for a batch of 22 to 28 787s.

“Overall, this option looks preferable to the offer made by Airbus,” says a source at Aeroflot management, which reportedly wants to reach agreement with Boeing as soon as possible in order to begin taking aircraft deliveries in 2010.

Deputy director for strategic development Sergei Kharitonov would not disclose the carrier’s choice but expects a contract with the winning bidder to be signed in March.

“This will be tantamount to our official announcement which we won’t make until then,” he says.

Apart from six Ilyushin Il-96-300s, Aeroflot currently operates nine 767s on long-haul routes. The carrier also operates 18 A320s on short-to-medium haul routes and in October the board of directors approved a plan to beef up medium-range capacity by taking leases on seven A321s.

The Russian Government is understood to have the final say over a type selection by state-controlled Aeroflot.

“Choosing Boeing aircraft for the long-haul segment will preserve a balance in Aeroflot’s foreign-built fleet,” says a senior official at the government’s industry and energy ministry. “Besides, the 787 appears to have a bit of an edge over the rival as a more advanced product.”

EADS’ Russian division chief Vadim Vlasov, however, says the Airbus parent company is firmly standing behind its offer to Aeroflot. “We believe our proposal is no worse than that of Boeing and are prepared to prove it at any level,” he says.

[Lee]

Originally Posted by Desven

good to see that the world's biggest airplane company still kicks ass!!

Boeing is several times larger than EADS, let alone Airbus, which is just a branch.

[spyguy]

Funny to see Airbus now comes before Boeing in the title, and the first articles are all Airbus

[staff]

So, Bangkok Airways are going to start fly long-haul?
Nice.

[Desven]

Originally Posted by Lee

Boeing is several times larger than EADS, let alone Airbus, which is just a branch.

lol,someone seems to be jealous...

[mic of Orion]

Go Airbus... lol

[Kai Tak]

Originally Posted by spyguy

Funny to see Airbus now comes before Boeing in the title, and the first articles are all Airbus

Hmm well the title I switched around, because in 2005, "B vs A" worked better because Boeing was the underdog and they were competing against Airbus. Now the tables have turned.

Well Airbus did have the first news of the year for an order announcement. I'll try to keep my news posts neutral.

[Kai Tak]

Ooooooh here's some good ol' fashioned competitiveness:

Composite Claims Infuriate Boeing

Flight International - 3/1/06

Boeing is reassuring airlines over the use of composite material for the primary structure of the 787 following claims by Airbus that the new Boeing twinjet could be grounded “because of a scratch in the paint”.

The claims, made at a recent safety conference in the USA, refer to Boeing’s decision to certificate the 787 for inspections for visible damage only without the need for non-destructive tests and represent “misinformation from the other side”, says 787 chief mechanic Justin Hale. “We all know composites can hide damage and so right up front we decided we’d certify for visible damage only,” he says.

Boeing says the basic design criterion for the 787 is founded on two key properties of the solid laminate composite; the non-propagation of cracks from undetected damage; and the inherent capability of the composite material to maintain structural integrity – even with small amounts of undetected damage.

The result, says the company, is that small areas of damage are acceptable for the life of the aircraft because they will never grow into a bigger, and potentially dangerous structural issue. “We have to demonstrate we’re good for these sorts of damage to the ultimate load for the life of the aircraft.

That’s why it makes me cringe when I hear them say undetected external damage could result in catastrophic failure, because there is so much margin being built into the structure,” says Hale.

“We’ve always tried to keep safety out of the discussions between Airbus and ourselves. We think Airbus builds a pretty safe aircraft, and it was pretty startling for us to hear Airbus roll out in a safety conference that accelerated damage is the biggest hurdle we have to overcome.” Hale adds that even though a series of bonded repair methods have been developed, and will be available to the airlines, “in general all of the repairs will most likely be bolted. Airlines may decide in the heavy check to pull off the bolted repair and clean it up with a bonded repair at that point.”

In the meantime, the airlines appear to be expressing concern over the issues raised by Airbus. “We’ve put a request to our development group for more chunks of (composite) barrel to counter what appears to be misinformation from the other side,” he says.

Airbus stresses the advantages of aluminium lithium for the fuselage skin panels of the A350 in terms of resistance to accidental damage, and its ability to undergo standard repair procedures.

[mic of Orion]

^lol, cool sdtuff,

[Bond James Bond]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/busine...371_air04.html

Wednesday, January 4, 2006
Aerospace Notebook: Attention now turns to building the 787
By JAMES WALLACE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

The Boeing Co. closed out a record-setting jetliner order year in 2005, with the company's 787 Dreamliner off to one of the best starts ever for a new airplane program.

Boeing won more than 200 firm orders in 2005 for the 787, bringing to nearly 400 the total number of orders and commitments it has received for the plane since the program was formally launched in late 2003.

In the last days of 2005, Boeing was able to sign a firm contract with Air India that had been pending for 20 787s, sources said Tuesday. That deal, which also includes 15 777s, means Boeing likely won firm orders for around 1,000 jets last year. Boeing will release its final 2005 order tally Thursday.

Orders for the 787 should continue to be strong in 2006, company executives say.

With the Dreamliner looking like a best seller, Boeing and its partners are now preparing to take a giant step in the life of a new airplane program -- manufacturing.

Some smaller parts for the 787 already are starting to flow through the supply chain, said Mike Bair, vice president and general manager of the 787 program. Boeing's partners will begin building major 787 structures toward the end of 2006, he said. The first flight is planned for 2007.

The 787 will be the first large commercial jetliner with a mostly composite airframe, and Boeing and its partners spent 2005 learning how to make these large, carbon-fiber fuselage barrels, which will be required for final assembly of the plane.

No one had ever made composite structure vessels of this size before.

Seven fuselage barrels were produced in 2005, and the last were of "flight worthy quality" and could have gone into an airplane if that had been the plan, according to Bair. Five of those barrels were made at Boeing's Developmental Center in Seattle. Spirit AeroSystems in Wichita, Kan., formerly Boeing's commercial operations there, made two barrels -- both 787 nose sections.

Wichita will supply the forward fuselage, known as Section 41, which includes the nose and cockpit.

Section 41 will be the largest of the 787 fuselage barrels -- about 43 feet long. The two nose sections that were made in Wichita last year were about half that long, but included the highly contoured cockpit section, which represents a more difficult manufacturing challenge.

A bigger autoclave will be needed in Wichita before the full-length Section 41 can be produced later this year.

"It has become a fairly routine process," Bair said of the barrel-making work in Wichita and in Seattle.

Two of the five test barrels made at the developmental center near Boeing Field in 2005 were joined together to prove out production methods, Bair said.

Boeing and its partners also built a full-scale 787 wing box in 2005 to demonstrate both the manufacturing techniques and to support structural testing that must be done to build a database for certification of the 787, Bair said.

Unlike a labor-intensive aluminum fuselage section of an airplane, which requires several large pieces held together by thousands of rivets, a composite fuselage barrel can be made as one big piece that does not need rivets. A computer-controlled robot applies layers of carbon fiber on a huge mold, which is then baked in an enormous oven, or autoclave, until cured.

"We have sucked up the world's capacity to do that," Bair said.

Boeing's partners don't yet have the big autoclaves needed to make the fuselage sections, wings and horizontal stabilizer of the 787. But they are in the process of getting them, Bair said.

Manufacturing plants to support the 787 are going up in Japan, Italy and South Carolina.

The three Japanese "heavies" will supply about 35 percent of the 787 airframe, including the composite wings. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries will supply the 787 wing box, Fuji Heavy Industries will supply the center wing box, and Kawasaki Heavy Industries will supply wing parts and a small fuselage section forward of the wing.

The companies are all building new facilities in and around the city of Nagoya, home Toyota Corp. The new Mitsubishi wing plant is on Nagoya Bay, on land where Mitsubishi Motors once assembled cars.

Completed wings of the 787 will be floated by barge from the Mitsubishi plant to the new Central Japanese Airport, or Centrair, which was created on an artificial island in Nagoya Bay. The wings, nearly 100 feet long, will then be flown to Everett on a modified 747 freighter for final assembly.

"It's breathtaking to see what some of these people are putting up," Bair said, referring to Boeing's 787 partners.

Manufacturing plants for the 787 also are going up in Italy and in South Carolina. Alenia, an Italian company, and Texas-based Vought Aircraft are responsible for the horizontal stabilizer, center fuselage and aft fuselage of the 787.

Vought will produce its 787 fuselage barrels at a new plant under construction at the Charleston, S.C., airport. The Vought section will be joined, in a separate assembly plant under construction nearby, with a fuselage section made by Alenia. The completed structure will be flown to Everett in those modified 747s.

"They have webcams set up all over the place so we can watch in real time," Bair said of the two 787 plants being built in Charleston.

"There is great progress in bringing the airplane into existence," Bair said.

But there are also many dangers ahead in such a complex undertaking. The manufacturing challenges are daunting, given that the 787 represents a huge technological leap over existing jets.

The last thing Boeing needs are the kinds of problems that have plagued Airbus and its A380 superjumbo.

That airplane, world's biggest jetliner, is at least six months late. Singapore Airlines won't get the first one until probably December.

All Nippon Airways of Japan is schedule to take delivery of the first Boeing Dreamliner, in early summer of 2008.

That's more than two years away. But Section 41 from Wichita is scheduled to arrive in Everett for final assembly of the first plane in April 2007.

And that's just 15 months away and counting down.

[Kai Tak]

Thanks for posting here Bond James Bond.

I'm hoping this thread will lead to the closure of Isan's, as it has become nothing more than Isan posting old news articles that others put up before him.

[Kai Tak]

Jagson To Launch National Airline With 19 Airbus Planes

NewKerala - 5/1/06

New Delhi: Jagson Airlines, the country's first private carrier, today announced plans to invest Rs 1,500 crore in the next three years and expand its existing feeder route network to national operations by 2006-end.

Currently, it operates on short routes in Himachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal and Rajasthan.

''Jagson will now fly as a national airline covering nine cities by this year-end with inaugural flight between New Delhi and Bangalore in April or May,'' said its newly-appointed Uttam Kumar Bose who recently quit the Subrata Roy-led Sahara group.

Mr Bose said Jagson will acquire 19 Airbus aircraft [A321s] and follow the low cost business model. ''We'll be targetting the existing economy class travellers and frequent fliers of legacy airlines with premium service at competitive prices.'' After the government opened up civil aviation sector for private investments, Jagson was the first to get its registration in 1992.

It will now have to convert its non-scheduled operator licence to that of a scheduled operator and increase the paid up capital from current Rs 1.06 crore to Rs 50 crore.