Originally Posted by
atakacs
Where did you find this in publicly available information ? Or are you with EK / Airbus ?
Tim Clark, head of Emirates said the following back in 2013. So five years ago Clark was optimistic GE and RR could and would do this engine improvement. Now five years later it appears he was wrong. GE won't make the investment and RR says they need a much bigger market to commit to that investment.
AW&ST: You would like Airbus to reengine the A380. How would that work? Clark: Engine technology is going through major changes. In the fullness of time, the A380 needs to get the benefit of what is going on with midsize fans. The Leap is going to give us 18% [better fuel burn], so they say. To leave the A380 in a position where it isn't [getting more efficient] doesn't make sense. What I've said to Airbus is the A380 is a good airplane today, makes money and is popular. And the alliance engines are, by and large, OK. But the new generation of widebodies is changing the game. A lot has changed since the A380 came to market. If they crossed over some of the stuff we're seeing on the new generation of jets onto the A380, it would be a very much-improved airplane. What time frame are you talking about? 2020?
Of course, we'd like to see it sooner. I don't think it would be difficult for propulsion manufacturers—Rolls-Royce and General Electric—to do a scale-down of what's going to come out of the new jets at the back of this decade. That cannot be lost on them. If you can do it with the A320 or [Boeing] 737, you can to it to the A380. It could be a smaller version of the [GE] 9X, or a smaller version of the [Rolls-Royce] Trent that was proposed, but there has to be a 10% reduction in [specific fuel consumption] straight away in the next generation.
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