The Escalating Woes at Airbus

Source
Just when things were going so well for the European plane maker, two major customers demand costly redesigns. The likely winner: Boeing

Airbus, struggling to gain altitude against a couple of archrival Boeing's (BA) hot-selling models, has hit two major patches of turbulence in the past few days.

On Mar. 28, the European planemaker's biggest customer, the International Lease Finance Corp., a Los Angeles-based subsidiary of American International Group (AIG), called for a top-to-bottom redesign of the A350, the plane Airbus plans to launch as a rival to Boeing's 787 Dreamliner.

Airbust is heading off to some tall weeds. 2005 was Boeings best sales year EVER. Boeing snookered them into building that 800 passenger white elephant and then Boeing builds a plane that the market actually wants. The 787 will have a 10,000 mile range and will be able two fly non-stop between any to points on earth.

America wins again.

[Mod Edit: Tag correction. Please review visit the link provided New Site Tag For Quoting External Sources - Jak]



[edit on 31/3/06 by JAK]

[edit on 31-3-2006 by ElTiante]

Originally posted by ElTiante

Source
Just when things were going so well for the European plane maker, two major customers demand costly redesigns. The likely winner: Boeing

Airbus, struggling to gain altitude against a couple of archrival Boeing's (BA) hot-selling models, has hit two major patches of turbulence in the past few days.

On Mar. 28, the European planemaker's biggest customer, the International Lease Finance Corp., a Los Angeles-based subsidiary of American International Group (AIG), called for a top-to-bottom redesign of the A350, the plane Airbus plans to launch as a rival to Boeing's 787 Dreamliner.

Airbust is heading off to some tall weeds. 2005 was Boeings best sales year EVER. Boeing snookered them into building that 800 passenger white elephant and then Boeing builds a plane that the market actually wants. The 787 will have a 10,000 mile range and will be able to fly non-stop between any to points on earth.

America wins again.

[Mod Edit: Tag correction. Please review visit the link provided New Site Tag For Quoting External Sources - Jak]

Ok, maybe this is a joke?

If not, I'm sorry but this dumb propoganda doesn't really sell well here, most informed people including patriotic Americans, can see through it. There is a market for both the A380 and the 787/747+ etc. Having slightly less market share in any one year doesn't spell disaster. And there is no denying, regardless of bias, that the A380 is a remarkable aircraft - and is selling.

PS. A350 mentioned in the source is not the "800 passenger white elephant" as you put it.

[edit on 31-3-2006 by planeman]

Propaganda? Really? Business Week not good enough? Ok, let’s see what the Economist says.

Airbus has a small problem in the market for big jets

AIRBUS was delighted with the results of an evacuation test for its double-deck A380 on March 26th. Although one person broke a leg and others suffered minor injuries, 853 passengers were evacuated in the dark with half the doors blocked in 90 seconds—fast enough to satisfy safety regulators. Otherwise the aircraft would have faced further delays to its entry into service, already pushed back six months to the end of this year, because of problems wiring the in-flight entertainment system.

The real test looming, however, will come from the market. Orders for the giant A380 have slowed to a trickle. Total orders of 159 are 100 short of the number at which the company breaks even. Airbus is sticking to its development figure of $11.7 billion, but there are rumours of over-runs. Nor is the company expecting many more orders until the aircraft enters service at the end of this year, first with Singapore Airlines followed by Emirates.

And the 787 has enough orders to break even yet? lol. sensationalising the obvious mate. I'm not here with any pro-Airbus agenda, but from where I'm standing you're only taking notice of half the picture, you're confusing two seperate projects (A350 and A380) and you're drawing unfounded conclusions like "America wins again".

You miss my point. The 350 will require an expensive redesigned and the A380 is an answer to a question nobody is asking. Geez, it takes forever to get off an airplane with 200 people on it, I can’t imaging how long 800 will take. Meanwhile Boeing is building and designing plans the market wants and eating Airbust’s lunch.

Originally posted by ElTiante
You miss my point. The 350 will require an expensive redesigned and the A380 is an answer to a question nobody is asking. Geez, it takes forever to get off an airplane with 200 people on it, I can’t imaging how long 800 will take. Meanwhile Boeing is building and designing plans the market wants and eating Airbust’s lunch.

Boeing is hardly eating Airbus' lunch. The A380 passenger evacuation trials were a success - the plain was unlit and half the exits were blocked off, and it still went pretty well. Airbus already has 159 orders for the A380 and it hasn't even entered service yet.

I'm not talking about an emergency. I'm talking about just the normal process of exiting an airplane when it's reached the terminal. I've waited 20+ minutes just to get the hell out of a commercial airliner. 800 people, you'll be in the damn plane for more than an hour just trying to get on the skyway.

Never mind that most airports will need to be modified to accommodate it, how the hell are the baggage carousels going to handle the luggage of EIGHT HUNDRED PASSENGERS?

Originally posted by planeman
Airbus already has 159 orders for the A380 and it hasn't even entered service yet.

The 787 already has 250 orders, many is Asian markets. It is not expected to begin service until 2008.
The A380 is an amazing A/C, but is only an option to larger carriers. I read somewhere that relatively few airports could even support the 380. Its main customers should be carriers performing transcontinental flights.

Everybody knows my personal stance on Airbus. However:

The A380 is strictly major slot limited hub to major slot limited hub. The airports it will serve will be major major ones. THink LAX, JFK, DeGuall, Heathrow etc. WHo is going to pay for the modifications for these airports? WHy you and I will with increased ticket costs.

That being said (and tempting the wrath of Waynos) with thier loans and subsadies, they can afford to wait it out till they sell enuf to break even. There will be a market for these huge transports albiet a very smaller one than for the A350 / 787.

The 787 is positioned well and with Boeings relenting on offering a 300 pax version eroded an edge that the A350 had in term of capacity. Its clear Boeing caved in to pressure from Emirates et al to do so, and while they may sell more 787, as I have said before it may doom the 777-200ER and perhaps the 777-300 (But not the 300LR an the 200LR) Rumors persist of a 777-400 but I thing the lengths of the both the 777 and A340-600 are stretching things quite a bit.

I need to read a bit more before coming to any conclution. However, if true, ILF has alot of clout and has made Airbus back off before (Remember when Boeing was in position of some A340 and Airbus indicated that if anybody bought them they would not service them or some such nonesence. When ILF bought them, all that talk stoped)

Originally posted by planeman



Ok, maybe this is a joke?

If not, I'm sorry but this dumb propoganda doesn't really sell well here, most informed people including patriotic Americans, can see through it. There is a market for both the A380 and the 787/747+ etc. Having slightly less market share in any one year doesn't spell disaster. And there is no denying, regardless of bias, that the A380 is a remarkable aircraft - and is selling.


[edit on 31-3-2006 by planeman]

it's not an april fools joke and is second source verified.

ORLANDO, Fla. — Two of the world's most powerful airplane buyers yesterday said Airbus should completely rethink the plane it has proposed to compete against Boeing's strong-selling new 787.

Steven Udvar-Hazy, probably the most respected figure in the global business of buying and selling airplanes, predicted the current version of Airbus' A350 would sell poorly and leave Boeing to dominate the lucrative market for midsized wide-bodies.


He stunned a packed audience of some 700 aviation professionals here by calling on Airbus to scrap its existing A350 design and spend many additional billions on a brand-new airplane with a new fuselage and a new wing.

"That's probably an $8 billion to $10 billion decision. Airbus is at a crossroads," said Udvar-Hazy, founder, chairman and chief executive of the second-largest airplane-leasing company, Los Angeles-based International Lease Finance Corp.

Airbus had better make that decision before the Farnborough Air Show in England in July, he said.

His remarks were endorsed by Henry Hubschman, president of the world's No. 1 lessor of airplanes. In an interview, he said he "completely" agreed with Udvar-Hazy's message.

Source: Airplane kingpins tell Airbus: Overhaul A350


there's much more in the article

yep boeing dupped them with the sonic cruiser and they fell for it. i wouldn't want to play texas holdem against them



you also forgot this little set back

Costly sales blow for Airbus

[edit on 31-3-2006 by bigx01]

Originally posted by ElTiante
...

Airbust is heading off to some tall weeds.

You do realize that the aircraft market consists of more than the A350 and the 787, hmm? Your headline and conclusions are factually wrong and deliberately misleading. It´s not like the 787 development is without problems either.

2005 was Boeings best sales year EVER.

So was the Airbus year, just like your OWN article says - outclassing Boeing the 3rd year in a row in orders and deliveries, and with an even widening gap. Selective perception must be nice.

Boeing snookered them into building that 800 passenger white elephant and then Boeing builds a plane that the market actually wants.

Then why is Boeing so keen on rushing the 747-8 out? Because its their hobby? Why was it sensible to increase the 747´s capacity in the past and suddenly declare the market dead?

The 787 will have a 10,000 mile range and will be able two fly non-stop between any to points on earth.

So what? Your "any points on earth" claim is not true, this is however not important anyway since several existing aircraft have ranges in the 8000-9000 nmi category right now. So what´s so special about it?

America wins again.

Didn´t know anyone could "win" with planes that exist only in a computer. Thanks for the head-up. I don´t doubt the 787 will be a huge hit for Boeing - but one shouldn´t forget that all this comes after a LONG road of failure after failure. I am also intrigued by the current mood that the A380 or 787 sales would doom the respective other company. This is simply a non-reasonable way of discussion.

[edit on 31/3/2006 by Lonestar24]

What a wonderful thread!
Not wishing to denigrate the good and intelligent replies from such as Fred, planeman and Lonestar but;

Why do some Americans 'support' Boeing as if its a football team? ""woo hoo Beoeing wins - go Boeing" You just don't get that here and its so funny to see, especially when it is so utterly without foundation, given the figures quoted in the original article, maybe the posters attention span fizzled out before he reached the bottom of the page?

Nice to see that other old turkey raised again "Boeing tricked Airbus into buiding the A380"

i NEED MY SIDES SEWING BACK UP, good one guys, its like watching little kids in the playground "ner ner, my dads bigger than your dad"

[edit on 1-4-2006 by waynos]

I do not think Aibus was duped by Boeing into buying into that market. Airbus and Boeing have visions of future air travel that differ. Thier latest offering show that in the A380 versus 787. Airbus's forecasts are geared for the large hub and spoke, Boeing is on fractured small city pairs with point to point service.

Airbus has had to modify its A350 proposal once and is rapidly getting to the point where it needs to freeze the design. Im not sure they can afford any more major changes because launch aid or not, they can ill afford to delay its service date much more.

The biggest factor in the sucess of the A380 IMHO will not come from the passanger version. Load factors will only justify that plane on as mentioned above from large hub to large hub. If you are not filling it, you are loosing money, but rather the cargo market. The pax version will top out pretty quickly, but the cargo version if the numbers are good could be the saving grace of the program. However the 747-8 will take a bit of a bit out of that (I wonder if a combi will be made avalible) and for carriers that don't quite have the 550 load factor but can't make do with a 777 or A340-600 may be interested (Ill put my money on BA or JAL buying the first PAX version)

Originally posted by waynos
Why do some Americans 'support' Boeing as if its a football team? ""woo hoo Beoeing wins - go Boeing"

You just don't get that here

Waynos, begging to disagree the staunch defenders of Airbus look exactly the same way to us as we do to you. Perspective is everything

I can see what he's saying in the article, and I think he's right. They're basically rebuilding a plane that's on the market and making it lighter. I think they need to at least redesign the wing. If it doesn't sell, it doesn't mean the end of Airbus, or even a huge hit for them, but it can be a big setback if the airlines and leasing companies get nervous and go with the 787 instead of the A350.

Hmm, I beg to differ Fred, I have never seen anything like that from the 'Airbus' side. What I have seen is posts attempting to correct misconceptions, such as are incuded in this thread, or attempting to redress the balance in biased threads that seem intent with nothing more than Airbus bashing where stuff that is perfectly normal is blown into some big negative story There is also the sort of stuff you and I engaged in a while back, such as our diametrically opposed viewpoints over the subsidies argument, which is a very different thing from actively cheering them on.

If you can show any such posting of course I will accept that, I may have just forgotten it, but whenever I argue the toss in Airbus favour it is driven by a wish merely to put the other side of the argument when it appears to have been ignored.

The general feeling over here seems to be that we want Airbus to sell planes so that the European industry can continue to exist in a healthy state, the viewpoint being put over on threads like this from your side of the pond seems to be more like you want Boeing to win the orders so that Airbus can be crushed out of existance and Boeing can' kick arse', be supreme and glorious and have things all its own way, these are two very different standpoints.
I stick up for Airbus when I think it is being unfairly maligned, not because I support it, I would do the same the other way (and have done) I actually expect BA will buy the 747-8 over the A380 and I feel that the airline has been waiting for Boeing to make that move as it has generally been unwilling to buy Airbus whenever a viable Boeing alternative was available.

In this regard I was astonished when BA announced it was ordering the A320 in preference to the 737, but I wasn't jubilant over it, as I will be if Rotherham United beat Doncaster Rovers this afternoon

Success for Airbus, to me, means a continuing success story to be happy about, yes. But for its own sake, I can't see I've ever known a European post anything like 'eat dirt Boeing, you're history, yippee'.

To my mind posts like that represent pure arse gravy and nothing more.

I haven't seen the "Go Airbus, stomp Boeing into the ground" but I have seen some seriously rabid Airbus defense at times. Last year I posted a thread saying that there may be a problem with the composites in the tails of Airbus, because some rudders had broken up or even off, and the tail that came off the AA flight in NY around 9/11, and got jumped all over for it.

I rememeber that zaphod, you are right. I think you just suffered a backlash as a result of unfortunate timing because as I remember it there had been a spate of 'anti-Airbus' posts on ATS in quite rapid succession at the time and your was, wrongly, lumped in with them.

Thats the trouble, if you look back through the topics you will see a large number of 'Airbus problems/Airbus fails' type posts, almost always started by Americans, you just don't get the same sort of 'Boeing cocks it up' posts from Europeans, as far as I can tell. This is what leads to the 'rabid defence' type posts which are posted in a reactionary manner.

I posted a topic once about Boeing having a large order cancelled by Air Canada (an order that was since reinstated) but did it in a level headed, even handed way, similar posts about Airbus tend to be fairly gloating in their tone and this is what annoys people.

Sadly this leads to level headed posts getting the same treatment and this leads to an impression that Europeans think Airbus must not be criticised, which is quite wrong and if the reporting on Airbus and Boeing weas treated in the same way by everyone then this would be seen to be true.

Originally posted by bigx01


yep boeing dupped them with the sonic cruiser and they fell for it. i wouldn't want to play texas holdem against them

Hahahaha i cant work out if this is a joke or not, boeing lost millions and millions of dollars on the doomed sonic cruiser project. I WOULD want to play hold em' against boeing as they clearly lost on that hand!

-George

It just keeps getting better

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Chinese airlines behind a $10 billion plane deal that powered Airbus past Boeing Co. in 2005 orders told Reuters they have not paid deposits, as would normally be required to count a deal as a firm order.

The planemaker said on Friday, however, that deposits had been paid and that it had satisfied the conditions for reporting the planes as firm orders.

Airbus came from behind in December to retain its crown in orders, surging forward with help from a 150-plane deal inked during a visit by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to France.

Yet airlines set to get the planes said deposits had not been paid, as they await a final decision on how the planes will be allotted among the six carriers involved.

If the 150 planes are not counted, Boeing beat Airbus in order intake last year for the first time since 2000.

"We have not made any down payment, as we still don't know how many A320 jets we will get," said an Air China Ltd. official in comments echoed by other carriers.

Reuters spoke to officials from five of the airlines.

A spokesman for Airbus said the deals were logged properly.

Boeing counted just 54 of an expected 150 aircraft in its deal toward its 2005 tally, as the others had not yet been finalised.

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