Airbus are 'confident' of 100-plus A350 orders

Airbus is expecting that they'll have 100 orders for their upcoming A350 airplane by next months Paris air show.
It is supposed to compete with the Boeing 787, whereas their last plane, the A380 was designed to compete with the Boeing747.

icWales
Head of commercial sales John Leahy said negotiations for the A350 are being conducted with several airlines.

He said: "We are in final talks with several companies. We'll have more than 100 firm orders in the order book for the A350 to announce at Paris.

"This is an all-new aircraft. Since December we improved width, range, seat costs, economics. We changed the aircraft three or four times in the past 90 days. We achieved an eight-tonne weight reduction through the use of new technologies. Sixty per cent of the A350 structure is in advanced materials."

The Boeing 787, expected to be delivered in 2008, currently has 261 firm orders.

The confidence is good thing, especially if your aircraft is more expensive and less effective than 787.

Originally posted by longbow
The confidence is good thing, especially if your aircraft is more expensive and less effective than 787.

A350-800 (245 passengers, 15,900 km) = $153.5M
A350-900 (285 passengers, 13,900 km) = $170M
en.wikipedia.org...

787-3 (296 passengers, 6,500 km) = ?
787-8 (223 passengers, 15,700 km) = $120 million
787-9 (259 passengers, 15,400 km) = ?
en.wikipedia.org...

What are the costs on the other two Boeing models?

[edit on 23-5-2005 by AceOfBase]

That prices for Airbus are from 2004. I don't know if they still stand, but I know that originally the A 350 was meant to be competitive to 787 because of lower price. There was even some talk about 90mil.$ per piece. The high euro VS dollar exchange rate killed the idea. There was a post here on ATS about it app before 2 months.

[edit on 23-5-2005 by longbow]

Airbus just lost an 8 billion dollar deal to Boeing in India after Air India decided to go for the Dreamliner for its fleet expansion.

USAir and America West are seeking to merge and one or the combined entity will be the launch customer for the A350.

No doubt having recived a cold responce for a warmed over A330 to compete with the 787, Airbus is set to announce changes to the A350 at the Paris Airshow. The plane will be an essentialy all new aircraft and interestingly enough after some veiled critisim about composites will be almost 40% (compared to 20 on the A380). The new plane is expected to have more seat than the 787.

Airbus has again revised its plans for the A350, turning it from an A330-derivative to a new widebody in the face of rival Boeing's success with its 787.

After first saying the existing A330/A340 family would suffice to compete with the 787, and last year amending that to projecting a mere derivative of the A330, the aircraft will now undergo a more dramatic transformation--a new development at a higher price. About "90% of the part numbers are going to be changed" over the current aircraft type, says Olivier Andries, A350 program manager.
All New A350?

No doubt Airbus is also going to begin to really chomp at the bit for more so called launch aid for the aircraft. Development costs fo this all new plane has jumped from 4 billion to 5.5 billion.

[edit on 5/27/05 by FredT]

Apparently the new A350 will have a per-seat fuel efficiency that's 4 percent greater than even the new dreamliner.

bloomberg

Airbus's A350-9 version would seat 259 passengers. The A350- 800 model would seat 253 in three classes, flying 8,560 nautical miles. That compares with 245 seats and range of 6,670 nautical miles in its existing A330-200.

Airbus said the higher seat count, which it got by moving back the rear bulkhead and crew rest area further back, will give the A350 17 percent better fuel efficiency per seat than its own A330- 200 and 4 percent better efficiency per seat than the 787-8 model, which seats 223.

Airbus's bigger A350-900 model would compete with Boeing's 787- 9, with 259 seats flying 8,300 nautical miles, and Boeing's 777- 200ER, which carries 301 passengers 7,700 nautical miles, as well as replacement plane for DC10s, MD11s and Airbus's own A340-300 models, Leahy said.

It's a shame they didn't start work on this earlier.
It wont be out until 2010, two years after the Boening 787 starts delivery.

But are the 2-3000 Airport ready to absorb the cost of lengthening and strengthening their Runways to accomodate Boing's competition?

Or let it fly the stricly international routes outside the U.S. or am I wrong and Airports now capable of 747 Landings automatically capable of handling that big Europe Giant?

Dallas

That's the A380 you're thinking of.
The A350 is a much smaller plane.
Smaller than a 747.

Update: Airbus says that the A-380 orders have been delayed, saying that they are around 6 months behind schedule. Which is not good news at all for the Airliners who have bought this bohemith. At least one Airliner plans on seeking compensation, more will likely follow.

A-380 - 6 months behind schedule

I heard on the news that Singapore Airlines may demand compensation for the 6 month A380 delay.

I don't think a delivery delay of 6mths is especially unusual for a brand new type, is it?

At around 2yrs out from the projected delivery date now I wouldn't be surprised if the date was moved again (either way).

[edit on 3-6-2005 by sminkeypinkey]

Has a new plane ever been delivered on time? When you look at military programmes 6 months is chicken feed