Airbus reports good progress with its flagship wide body airliner programmes

European major airliner manufacturer Airbus, part of the Airbus Group, announced significant developments in its two most recent wide-body airliner programmes, the A350 XWB and A380 Superjumbo at its recent global press conference. (The press conference was transmitted worldwide, via the internet.)

The next version of the latest generation A350 XWB airliner, the A350-1000, is planned to make its first flight during the final quarter of this year. “The -1000 is doing well,” Airbus President and CEO Fabrice Brégier told the media. “The [A350-1000’s specified] performance will be met at the first deliveries. So the -1000 is well on track. The -1000 will start its first assembly next month.” The first A350-1000 should be delivered to a customer in mid-2017.

The A350-1000 will be able carry 366 passengers, as against the 325 in the A350900, which is the first version of the aircraft to be developed; the first A350-900 was delivered to Qatar Airways in December 2014. “The 350 was probably the biggest industrial challenge [for Airbus in 2015],” he reported. “We have delivered 14 and we could have delivered 15 if we had not been trapped by some cabin elements of the last aircraft of the year.” (Problems at a supplier company to Airbus delayed the delivery of key cabin fittings.)

“We plan to deliver at least 50 A350s [this year],” he stated. “I think this is doable. It’s not a walk in the park. I would be disappointed if we did not deliver 50 A350s this year.” He noted that ramping up deliveries from one in 2014 to 14 in 2015 to 50 in 2016 “is quite a challenge!”

“The target is to achieve [production of] ten aircraft a month in 2018,” affirmed Brégier. It means we will continue to ramp up in ’16 and ’17. So the game is not over. The first aircraft are extremely difficult to put together.”

The company is already considering further developments of the new airliner family. It has already launched the A350-900ULR version, for Singapore Airlines. ULR stands for Ultra Long Range, and this variant will be able to carry up to 165 000 ℓ of fuel (without needing any extra fuel tanks: it will use an dated version of the existing fuel system). The result will be an airliner capable of flying for 19 hours nonstop between Singapore and New York. This will be the world’s longest commercial passenger route. Singapore will acquire seven A350-900ULRs.

Currently, total orders for the A350 XWB family stand at 777, of which 580 are for the A350-900 and 181 are for the A350-1000. There are also 16 orders for the A350-800, which will be the smallest member of the family, the production of which has not yet been launched.

Regarding its flagship A380 programme, the company announced that it had achieved breakeven last year, with the delivery of 27 of the aircraft to customers. This came ten years after the airliner’s first flight. Further, last month, a new customer ordered three of the giant airliners.

To date, Airbus has delivered 179 A380s, all of which are in operation, with 13 operators in Asia, Australia, Europe and the Middle East. “We’re delivering 20 to 30 aircraft a year,” pointed out Airbus COO: customers John Leahy. “We’ve got 140 aircraft in the [A380] backlog. That’s quite a few years of production.” He noted that this gave the company plenty of time to win further orders for the airliner.

“An A380 takes off or lands somewhere in the world every three minutes,” he noted. “One hundred routes are flown by the A380 . . . 20% of passengers [surveyed] are ready to pay a premium, even if they’re in economy [class], to fly the A380.” With air traffic doubling every 15 years – in some parts of Asia, it is doubling every ten years – large airliners like the A380 will be essential to handle the increased traffic through increasingly congested airports, argued Leahy. “Right now there are 47 megacities around the world; 36 of them have regular services by the A380,” he highlighted. “Eight per cent of all the passengers that went through [London] Heathrow last year were flying on an A380.” And 75-million passengers went through Heathrow in 2015.

“We’ve progressively tried to reduce the breakeven [point] for the A380,” stressed Brégier. “And we will continue to reduce it and I am confident we can achieve it [breakeven] in the coming years with deliveries nearer to 20 [aircraft].” He refused to identify the new A380 customer, because the client desired confidentiality. “It’s a new customer, a new airline – it’s not a repeat order,” was all he would say. Global aviation media are, however, speculating that it is All-Nippon Airways.

“We are working on other [A380 sales] campaigns right now,” affirmed Leahy. “We’re making good progress. We’re working diligently with airlines. It [the A380] helps them brand their product, differentiate their product, going forward. We’re working on sales campaigns for more than 25 aircraft.”