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CIVIL AVIATION AT FARNBOROUGH

Almost a tradition, this year's airshow at Farnborough was characterized by the ongoing debate between Airbus and Boeing. "The Airbus A3XX is financial suicide", with this statement Ron Woodard, President of the Boeing Commercial Airplane Group, rang in another round of the publicly fought controversy of the two leading aircraft manufacturers.

According to general industry forecasts, there may be a potential market need of 600 aircraft in the 400- to 500-seat airliner category under favourable circumstances, said Woodard. Furthermore, there may be a market for another 500 aircraft in the mega-airliner class of over 500 seats.

Woodard doubted that this market potential justifies the development of an entirely new aircraft with all the required investments. That's why Boeing continues to develop derivatives of the successful 747 concept.

The 747-500X is supposed to fly over a distance of approximately 16000 km with up to 462 passengers - 2500 km farther than the current 747-400 version - while still offering a freight capacity of ten tons.

The -600X variant could carry 548 passengers over distances of up to 14000 km. Should there be a need for a larger aircraft, Boeing will offer a 747-700X with 650 seats and a range equivalent to the current 747-400, says Woodard.

Woodard expects the costs for the new 747 models to be around five billion dollars. He can«t understand how Airbus can estimate the costs for the new A3XX project as low as eight billion US dollars.

According to Woodard, Airbus Industrie is messaging the market by forecasting a totally unrealistic market potential of 1380 units. He is convinced that the investments for the A3XX will rather be in range of 12 to 15 billion dollars and that the market is significantly smaller.

"If the market is so small, Boeing should withdraw from it", Airbus vice head, Volker von Tein, countered, adding: "When our A3XX steps into the world all of these rehashed 747 derivatives will breath their last's." Furthermore, he stated that Boeing had already tried to discredit the A320 with a similar campaign in 1984: "But, we have conquered the market and they have lost."

Airbus Vice President Commercial, John Leahy, explains that, based on the uncorrected number of confirmed orders for the current business year until August, Boeing is in first place with 333 orders for aircraft with more than 100 seats (56 percent of the market), Airbus is second with 234 orders (39 percent), and McDonnell Douglas (MDC) is holding the third position with 29 orders (5 percent of the market).

However, Leahy points out, looking at market numbers which are corrected by the cancellations (Airbus 13, Boeing 117, MDC seven), Boeing only holds 47 percent of the market, putting them into second position after Airbus Industrie (48 percent). Looking at the Airbus market segment of 125-seat to 350-seat aircraft, the result is even more obvious (Airbus 52 percent , Boeing 43 percent) in favour of the European consortium. McDonnell Douglas stays in third position with a five percent market share.

This, however, is something that the traditional Long Beach based airliner manufacturer wants to change. The civil Douglas Aircraft Company wants to reacquire its former market presence in a last major effort with a new management under the lead of President Mike Sears, so far General Manager of the successful F-18 fighter program. MD-XX is the designation of the new hope. Following last year's market entry of the MD-90 and the first flight of the smaller MD-95, which is scheduled for 1998, a 300 to 515-seat derivative of the only moderately successful MD-11 is to break the phalanx of the Boeing and Airbus widebody aircraft with two versions: As MD-XX-Stretch with a 25 percent higher passenger capacity than the MD-11ER (375 to 515), and as MD-XX Long Range which is projected to offer the same seating capacity as the predecessing model (309) but will have a range that is increased by 2593 km to approximately 16000 km.

Continued in next month's issue.

From page 24 of FLUG REVUE 10/96