FLUG REVUE February 2005: Airbus offers A350 to counter 7E7

February 2005

A350 CHALLENGES 7E7

By Sebastian Steinke

One might have expected that, in view of the impending rollout of the A380, the verbal skirmish between the engine manufacturers over the winter months would revolve around the biggest jets from Seattle and Toulouse. Instead, the war of words has broken out unexpectedly fiercely in the medium size market segment which, in view of the potential unit numbers, is actually the critical “bread and butter business” of aircraft construction.

Airbus A350-900

Only in the summer Airbus had stubbornly denied any plans to respond to the ultra-efficient, but relatively low-capacity Boeing 7E7 family of aircraft with an alternative of its own. Yet on 10 December the EADS Board of Directors in Amsterdam indirectly complimented its American competitor by giving the green light for the next Airbus type. EADS gave Airbus the “authorisation to offer”, i.e. to enter into legally binding negotiations with customers even before the A350 project had acquired the status of an official aircraft programme and been launched.

The A350 is to be designed as a sister model to the A330, with similar flight deck and sharing the same pilot type rating, and, with a development budget of around four billion euro, is set to defy Boeing's high-tech 7E7 programme, which is costing twice as much. Assuming that there is sufficient customer interest, the A350 could enter service as early as the first six months of 2010.

Explaining the change of heart in Toulouse, Airbus President Noel Forgeard said, “The long-range market is becoming more segmented in terms of size and range. Airbus has listened to its customers, who were interested in the medium size category with greater range to complement their current Airbus wide-body families. As a response, we are now offering the A350, which, in addition to its special capabilities, offers all the advantages of a trusted airliner family. We are now in the unique position of being able to satisfy all airlines' demands in the long-range sector, from the 250 seater to the high-capacity A380.”

The A350 will be offered in two versions similar in their dimensions to the A330-200 and A330-300 and hence somewhat bigger than the rival 7E7. The initial A350-800 version will accommodate 245 passengers in a three-class configuration on long-range flights of up to 15,900km. In addition to passenger luggage, it will be capable of transporting up to six under-floor cargo pallets 244cm x 317cm. On the other hand, the larger A350-900 will be able to carry 285 passengers for up to 13,900km.

From a technological point of view the A350 wing will be substantially modified: with similar dimensions to the A330 wing, it is to be aerodynamically redesigned and will be largely constructed out of Carbon Fibre Reinforced Plastic (CFRP). The fuel capacity of the A350 wing will remain at exactly the level of the previous A330-200, namely at 139,090 litres. The horizontal stabiliser will also be redesigned. Like the A380, the A350 fuselage will incorporate components made from aluminium-lithium alloys. Whereas the proportion of composite materials used on the A380 is only just under 25 percent, on the A350 this will rise to over 30 percent. In the cabin, the ceiling lighting will feature light-emitting diodes. Rest rooms will be provided as standard behind the cockpit for pilots and below the floor for the cabin crew. Airbus is aiming to cut maintenance costs on the A350 to around ten percent lower than on the A330.

The engines on the A350 will be broadly similar to the bleedless engines of the Boeing 7E7, except that Airbus will use a derivative, still to be developed, that does use bleed air. During a visit of the German Aerospace Press Club in Toulouse at the beginning of December, Airbus Chief Commercial Officer John Leahy explained, “We have several times got our engineers to analyse whether bleedless technology pays or not. It is not just a clear-cut case of saving weight, but additional mass is created due to generators, electric motors, heating and pressurising systems. All things considered, in our view the solution with bleed air is the more economic.” The bleed air system of the A350 is to be broadly similar to that of the A340-600.

The launch engine for the A350 will be the new generation General Electric GEnx 72A1. The engines will have new cowlings and pylons derived from the A380's technology. Rolls-Royce is apparently in the advanced stages of negotiations over equipping the A350 with an alternative powerplant. Like the 7E7, the A350 is to be QC0.5 rated for noise emissions on the approach and QC1 rated for departure noise, in line with the noise restrictions that are being introduced at London Heathrow.

Instead of following Boeing in designing a completely new aircraft, Airbus expects to make significant savings by incorporating many elements from the A330, which, as regards the operating costs, will make up for the lack of totally new technology by offering higher capacity. In response to a query from FLUG REVUE, John Leahy confirmed that it was because of specific customer requests that the A350 would retain a strong similarity to the A330 and hence would have the exact same fuselage diameter, i.e. smaller than on the 7E7. “The airlines that we are talking to,” he said, “unanimously asked us not to mess with the 330.”

With the A350, Airbus is aiming for the top end of the capacity of the 7E7 family, in which the Asian airlines are especially interested. EADS estimates a requirement for 3,100 aircraft in the market segment of the A350 over the next 20 years. Whereas the A350-800, which will have a unit price of $153.5 million, is likely to mainly threaten the similar-sized 7E7-8 and 7E7-9, the stretched A350-900, which will cost $170 million, could be competing with Boeing's 777-200ER for 295 passengers. Of course, there is a risk that Airbus will effectively be developing in-house a more cost-effective rival to its own A340-300. On the other hand, the long-range A350 does nothing about the gap in wide-body short- and medium-range aircraft which Airbus has ignored since the A310 and A300-600R, a gap which Lufthansa is always complaining about in Europe.

So far Boeing has responded quite relaxed to the latest Airbus announcement. Alan Mulally, President and Chief Executive of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, explained in an interview with the Boeing company magazine “Frontiers”, “We're not quite sure what the A350 is yet. Airbus had a good product in the A330, but they know it can't compete with the all-new 7E7. So, they've talked about taking the engines developed for the 7E7, modifying them to work on the A330 and maybe using more composites, and calling it A350. Whatever they do they're not going to match the range, payload or economics of the 7E7.” This is disputed by Mike Turner, Chief Operating Officer of Airbus shareholder BAE Systems: “Airbus has presented an excellent business plan for the launch of this important aircraft. The A350 will make a significant contribution to the splendid Airbus success story.”

From page 26 of FLUG REVUE 2/2005

Last updated 10 January 2005

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