The Big Debate
While the industry downturn continues to force premium traffic off airplanes, the chances of recovery within 2009 (or even 2010 for that matter) seem as bleak as ever.
Billed as the biggest commercial airliners ever to have entered service, both the Airbus A380 and Boeing 747-8 families have had a tough time - not just from the new evolution of consumer spending trends favouring cheaper alternatives to full service airlines, but also they battle from within their respective portfolio’s of sisterships.
The runaway sales success of the 787 Dreamliner followed closely by Airbus’ A350XWB family, the popularity of the A330 topped by the unmatched dominance of the 777 family has forced these two big airplanes into niche roles.
Images courtesy of Airbus / Boeing
Between the 2008 Boeing Current Market Outlook (980) and the 2007 Airbus Global Market Forecast (1283), there doesn’t appear to be an awful lot separating the two jet makers in their assessment of the large airplane arena.
The reality of the marketplace does however seem to differ, particularly in the wake of the long denied and even longer awaited production cut to the A380, as well as Boeing’s decision not to up rates on its widebody airplanes.
“Tomorrow’s large-airplane market will be filled by the Boeing 747-8, whose step-up in size from the current industry-standard 747-400 makes far more commercial sense in today’s slower-growth markets than the over-sized, un-optimised and under-achieving Airbus A380. Plus, at today’s A380 build rate of up to 14 aircraft/year (even generously allowing 20/year from 2010 — and that is being generous), Airbus has practically a decade of A380 backlog on its hands.
Assuming of course that all booked A380 orders are firm. Airbus says they are, so they must be…
Therefore any carrier which wants new high-capacity aircraft for delivery before 2020 has only one choice — the 747-8 Intercontinental. Reliability, practicality and pragmatism are far more bankable commodities than runaway egos, pet projects and ridiculous pipe-dreams (like 45 A380 deliveries/year by 2010/2011).
It’s Boeing’s market,” says Doug McVitie, MD at Arran Aerospace.
Image copyright/owned by FleetBuzz Editorial.com
Where the A380 lacks a sibling in a freighter model, the 747-8F has soldiered on without any cancelled orders while still having the 747-8I stable-mate alongside it, with launch customer Lufthansa sticking firmly by its order for the latter.
The debates here on the Editorial have been a delight to read, and in part, is why this piece exists to further foster discussion and analysis from readers and those that have direct experience in the aerospace field - and not from those ”me too” chaps that have sat in an A380 (or 747) pilot seat “pretending” to fly it - (Good Lord, I bet many readers/spotters/enthusiasts have sat in a pilots seat…but I digress…)
Having seen the “boom years” pass by, both A380 and 747-8 families have been hit by delays and increased production costs. Given the current state of the market, the 747’s saving grace is that the new models are not in service and have relatively little impact on its production. In the case of the 747-8I, Boeing’s decision to push back service entry into Q4 of 2011 could well be timed with a firmer, wider industry rebound.
For the A380, having already revised rates numerous times poses questions about Airbus’ promises to shave weight from the airplane in time for a 2012 service entry, with British Airways executives being among the most sceptical that such milestones can be reached with a production rate that barely pushes over the 1-a-month ratio.
Travel trends have changed, pricing power, consumer attitudes and even the recent spike in oil prices do not favour the old model of hub-to-hub traffic transit while the unabated explosion of point-to-point traffic continues to become the dominant force.
Image courtesy of Boeing
No one has a crystal ball to predict the outcome of “who did better” in this niche - suffice to say that in the absence of a direct competitor, much like the 777-300ER’s position, the 747-8F has wrapped up the freight segment. The likelihood of an A380F is almost zero - or perhaps as promising as an A340-300 freighter.
The debates around the success(es) or otherwise of the A380 and 747-8 will rumble on - just as traffic has influenced operator routes to favour twin engine airplanes over the last quarter of a century, their continued development will ultimately have the final say on the longevity of these two leviathan airplanes.
It’s a market that no-one has the correct answer to, suffice to say that from a financial standpoint, perhaps the 747-8 still appears to be streets ahead in the race for making money while Airbus pussyfoots around deciding on a breakeven number it probably will not achieve anyway (unless you’ve been paid to believe otherwise).
137 comments June 3rd, 2009
