FLUG REVUE September 2003: A318 enters service

FIRST A318 DELIVERED

By Sebastian Steinke

A world cruise in what is at once the smallest Airbus and also the biggest regional jet: in the afternoon sunshine of 22 July, Airbus training captain and instructor Jorge Escalante is already looking forward to his forthcoming ferry flight to the USA. He is part of the extended crew that has been tasked with setting off from Hamburg Finkenwerder in the first A318, decked out with the Frontier Airlines grizzly bear on its tail fin, for a brief demonstration to the US Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) in Phoenix, Arizona. It will take seven-and-a-half hours just to fly to Bangor, Maine for an intermediate stop before continuing on to Phoenix, another five-and-a-half hours away.

A318 for Frontier in flight

The engine originally planned for the A318 was the PW6000, but the engine programme developed fuel consumption problems. The first delivery of the latest and smallest member of its A320 aircraft family is proof that Airbus has overcome this setback and succeeded in rounding off its family with a particularly small model that is right on the borderline with the regional jets.

“With our latest product we are addressing two target groups at once,” says Mario Heinen, Senior Vice President Single-Aisle Programs at Airbus. “First of all, existing customers who are looking for a 100-seater with maximum commonality, and secondly, new customers thinking of buying an entry-level model,” says the Airbus manager, who believes the company has the edge on the competition. “The A318 is not just another new regional jet, it has twice the range (5,500km), which means it can be used, for example, right across America or in Europe, including North Africa and the Mediterranean area. As well as about ten percent more capacity, it also has the advantages of the Airbus family.”

Airbus's latest model, the A318, was launched in May 1999 and is based on the A319, itself a derivative of the A320, but with two fuselage sections removed, one in front of and one behind the wing.

The advantage of this is that, because of the modular use of components, the new version was relatively cheap to develop – costing $300 million, according to information obtained by FLUG REVUE, so that the programme should break even from around the hundredth aircraft sold. The list price is just under $45 million, dependent on equipment configuration (Frontier is said to have paid $42.1 million). At the same time, the A318 enhances the attractions of the rest of the A320 family, at whose upper end is the A321, which already has over 200 seats and hence is clearly above the spectrum of its arch rival, the Boeing 737.

Adding a new member to an existing family such as the 737-600 or A318 comes at relatively little additional cost for the manufacturer, once development and certification are complete. Instead, orders for the special model can slip seamlessly in among the ongoing series production of the other members of the family, which are being built in greater numbers.

The commonality of the A318 parts with the rest of the A320 family (fuselage cross-section, wing, cockpit, equipment, CFM56 engines) offers many cost benefits to airline customers in terms of simpler parts provisioning and personnel training. But the price for this is that the ready subassemblies that the “Babybus” A318 has taken from its sister planes are in some cases bigger than is strictly necessary as they were designed for a larger plane, so that their structural weight is greater.

Compared with its direct competitor, the 737-600, this disadvantage is not so striking, given the somewhat more modern basic design (fly-by-wire/electronic flight control system) of the A318, but it is more obvious when one compares it with the significantly lighter Boeing 717, which offers tailored, modern regional jet engines from Rolls-Royce, modernised cabin interior and glass cockpit, albeit without fly-by-wire. On the other hand, with its short range, the 717 can only be used on purely regional routes.

The third competitor, the relatively small and light newly developed Embraer 190, is the most serious contender, having recently stolen a large piece of the hotly contested cake with a major order for 100 aircraft from JetBlue – a bitter blow for the A318. And this was despite the fact that JetBlue, whose fleet had previously consisted only of A320's, would have benefited considerably from the above-mentioned advantages of commonality with another member of the same Airbus family.

So why has launch customer Frontier chosen the A318? When put this question by FLUG REVUE at a press conference in Finkenwerder, Paul Tate, Chief Financial Officer of Frontier, had this answer ready: “The design similarity is the critical factor. We have to keep our fleet simple. Having a lot of different regional jets would only complicate our business. The A318 has the same cockpit as our A319's. It is precisely the road we want to go down: we want to have a thoroughbred Airbus fleet.”

But the A318 also plays an important role as far as Frontier's brand image is concerned on account of its high on-board comfort, as Tate emphasises. “With a 33 inch seat pitch [84cm] and 24 live TV channels on board, our customers will prefer our product.” Compared with previous Boeing aircraft, the seat mile costs would be lower, and the Airbus reliability was “worlds apart”.

With the A318 equipped for 114 passengers in a single class configuration (6 seats per row), moreover, Frontier would be able to serve the medium-sized markets from Denver without having to cut back on passenger comfort.

According to Tate, the A318 offers “mainline service” i.e. a higher level of comfort – an advertising argument that should go down especially well in the USA, where numerous very small regional aircraft do not always pamper their passengers with amenities and space. On the other hand, conspicuously large kitchen fittings at the front and rear of Frontier's A318 cabin bear witness to its inflight culinary ambitions. Again, the toilet facilities are naturally up to the comfortable Airbus standard.

The Frontier management, obviously persuaded by the Airbus products, have ordered 35 A319's and A318's altogether to date, and used the occasion of the A318 handover to announce that the airline from Denver would be leasing another two aircraft for delivery in May 2004 and March 2005 from GECAS on top of its existing order for five A318's (to be delivered by April 2004).

At present Airbus has 84 firm orders for the “Babybus”. At one time the A318 order backlog had stood at well over 100 aircraft. But first its prospective major customer, TWA, was forced to cancel an order already placed for 25 A318's plus a further 25 options, following its take-over by American Airlines. Then the delays over the PW engines caused several other A318 customers to switch to the next largest sister model, the A319, which, unlike the A318, can accommodate freight containers and not just loose baggage in the hold.

“We haven't really lost customers, they have just switched to different Airbus models,” says Manager Mario Heinen. “The new engine was the biggest investment on the A318, but the business case stands.”

Whereas the first A318 for Frontier will currently be powered, like all the other present examples, solely by the 21,600lb (95.9kN) thrust-limited CFM56-5 engines, the manufacturer is working on modification of the alternative PW engines, which will feature new MTU high-pressure compressors that reduce fuel consumption.

Airbus test pilot Escalante, who has not only personally experienced both A318 engine versions but also regularly flies the Airbus widebody types, believes that the PW engines, which will not be available until the end of 2005, will have a lot to offer. “They are hardly any different to fly. Only the engine monitoring instruments in the cockpit are different. But they have a very effective reverse thrust and are nice and quiet.” Escalante is also satisfied with the CFM engines. Except at 4,000-5,000ft (1200 to 1500m) altitude above sea level, they still achieve the best take-off power in his view. Because of its powerful engines, he reckons that the A318 could also take off from high-lying airports like Denver or Reno without any problems.

Mario Heinen expects that in the longer term sales will be split evenly between the two engine variants. The present CFM powerplant was originally only considered by Airbus in response to stubborn pleading by an early A318 customer, Air France. Frontier on the other hand had originally ordered PW engines for its A318's.

As with all its new versions, Airbus has once again used the A318 to introduce a number of small product improvements, most of which are later adopted onto the other types in the relevant type family. The most striking of these in the A318 is the use of liquid crystal displays in the cockpit, replacing the CRTs previously used. LCD monitors take up a lot less space, are lighter, consume significantly less power, generate no heat and are now so bright that they are still legible even under unfavourable light conditions. The cabin also boasts a genuine new feature: in future, the leading member of the crew will be able to monitor and control all the cabin functions such as temperature, lighting, background music and entertainment programme from a central, touch-sensitive control monitor on the forward port door. The state of readiness of the escape chute can also be controlled from here.

As far as flying the aircraft is concerned, apart from some minor, weight-induced changes in certain speed stipulations, pilot Jorge Escalante sees virtually no difference between the A318 and the other models of the A320 family or the other Airbus widebody models. In addition to some small changes to the brakes and the air-conditioning, one virtually unique feature is that the nosewheel of the A318 is now controlled via the “yellow” hydraulic system rather than via the green one, as has hitherto been the case in the A319 to the A321. It is said that in the event of a system failure, the remaining hydraulic units will then be able to cope better.

From FLUG REVUE 9/2003

Last updated 11 August 2003

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