Airbus to roll out plans for new plane
 

Now that the Airbus CEO is talking about a new A330-200 sized plane, its moved from Rumours to News...

Airbus to roll out plans for new plane

Some fair-use quotes:
--ev--

An A330 with A345/6 engines? Likely/possible/other thoughts?

Engines will be the ones being developed for 7E7 - both GE and RR are on board for doing this. Central wing box will be made of composites instead of metal. Most accounts also have a reshaped wing. All this is being done to make a A330-200 sized plane that is competitive in the regional market.

The main debate seems to be whether the tweaks above are sufficient or if a whole new plane will be made. As Mr. Forgeard says above, that has yet to be decided, either is possible.

--ev--

eal401,

Why? So it can be just as slow and inefficient as those two airplanes are? Come on. Airbus is smarter than that……. :E :E :E

The goal is less range, not more. The target market is the regional market, not longhaul. Thus the lighter wing box, a smaller and lighter wing, lighter engines, etc. Both A and B are trying to address the A300/A310/B767 replacement market.

--ev--

A380focal,

I about shat myself laughing when I saw your username. That is great. If you made it because of my username I am truly flattered. :)

Cheers. :ok:

747Focal

Methinks I possibly spot a Brit Abroad otherwise we may have found the oft sought rarity of a Yank with a sense of humour?:suspect: :suspect:

more plastic...

fantastic. :rolleyes:

Thank Cliff for RVSM or we'd never get past those trundling frog fliegen-wagens.

Sonic Bam,

Ahhh, not a bad eye, but a few hundred years off. :p Yes I am a yank, but I been the world over. Who knows, maybe that makes me different. :\ :E

Isn't this the A350? Something akin to a A330-200 sized fuselage with shorter wingspan to cover the gap in the product range between the A321 and the A330-200?

Widebody A310 is a MUCH comfier way to travel than narrow body A319/320321 in Europe!

According to Boeing the 7E7 offers three versions with ranges from 3,500nm with 289 pax, 8,300nm with 217 pax and 8,300nm with 257 pax. If history is any guide, the longer range variants will comprehensively outsell both the shorter range variant and the competitor's shorter ranged alternatives - think 763ER vs 763, A310-300, A300-600R etc. If Airbus are to stand a chance of competing with the 7E7 they'll have to match its range and economy with, maybe, a separate, lighter, variant for short- haul ops. I would have thought this a bit of a tall order through just tweaking the A332. :confused:

I'm still trying to get my head round the idea that this is an aircraft aimed at the "regional" market..... well, it would certainly allow the pax bigger carryon bags than they can bring on an Embraer 145!

Torquelink,

You forget that the B7E7 is Boeing's response to the A332. Although the B7E7 will be more efficient than the 332 it is only just a bit different.

All the 20% fuel savings etc Boeing have been talking about for the B7E7 are against the older B767's and not the A332

Then why would Airbus be spending BILLIONS to counter it.

The numbers don't add up with your statement

Cheers
Wino

...but the odd couple of billion is not quite the same as 10's of billions, although I wish I could refer to my bank account in billions !!!!:(

Well,

Airbus would certainly start to use some billions in development of a new airplane if it is a driect replacement for the A300/310 B767-200/300.

It is no problem to find an economic short to long range 250+ seater, but if your market only sustains a consistent pax load of some 180 to 220 people then you either still fly on 15 to 20 year old airplanes or you hope for a market growth.

And if you build the airplane to be felixible enough to sustain both European/Japanese short hauls as well as long hauls going up to 270 paxes in the 'almost freight' config for the european charter operators, then you face a market of some 750 to 1000 aircraft over the next couple of years...

In the 7E7 presentations I've been given, they never say the 20% is vs the A330 - only vs "previous generation airplanes". Call me a cynic, but when I read that and the rest of the presentation IS vs A330, then I tend to believe it's vs 767. If they don't mention something, it's usually for a reason.

The other thing I don't get is how can a 7E7 with about 15-20% less seats than an A330 ever have a lower seat-mile cost?

To my mind it's the Boeing numbers that don't add up? It may well have a lower trip cost, but if you can fill the seats, you go for the bigger airplane, surely?

As for the range issue, neither the A345 nor the 777-200LR are exactly best sellers, are they? What's the point having a range hardly anyone wants? You just end up with an over engineered aircraft!

Well, these days one can be on ERJ/CRJ flights for some dreadfully long times... But "regional" in my post means "regional route" not "regional jet". Again, it's the A300/A310/B767 market, not the ERJ/CRJ one that is being addressed.

Lots of speculation about size/range here and elsewhere, so I'll just go with what's in the original article, and trust we'll find out the truth "sometime soon"... --ev--

I hate the wretched CRJ! Nasty b£oody cramped little thing. OK perhaps for a 40 min trip from FRA to CLN, but horrid for anything more....

Having flown on 737, 319-321 and BAe146 recently, it would be such heaven if instead LH still used their vastly more comfortable A310s and a few more A300-600s....

Don't believe the bull$hitters from Boeing - the 7E7 is still very much a paper plane. The A330M19 nearly made it, but got canned - and would have fitted the gap in their product range which the A350 will now have to fill.

A paper plane? Ahh, now there's a thought for reducing weight.

Panda

I knew, when I wrote my previous post that someone would raise the question of the 777-200LR! But, insofar as my argument is concerned, I regard the -200LR as a shrink of the -300ER rather than as a development of the -200ER just as the A345 is a shrink of the A346 rather than a development of the A343 - and shrinks never sell well (it's my argument so I can make up the rules as I go along!).

Cejkovice

While I accept that the 7E7 is Boeing's response to the A332, I'd argue that it's more than "only just a bit different". If Boeing are to be believed it has a wider fuselage, larger windows, lower structural weight, more efficient engines, all-electric, virtually zero heavy maintenance visits etc etc plus the greater range. On the other hand, the A332 does have more seats and I'm sure that Boeing's 20% smc reduction is being compared to the 763 rather than the A332. As Wino says, if Airbus weren't worried about it, they wouldn't be talking openly about the effective replacement of a model which has only been in service for six years.


:D

IMHO, what Airbus is after is to fullfil the need for a high-density, short-to-medium range jet, i.e. a good replacement of the A300/310 series, both in pax and cargo configs (There are a lot of A300-600F's and 757-200F's reaching the end of their life cycle).

GD&L

That's my take on it too - that Airbus won't go and create a competitor to the long-haul 7E7, as they seem to belive the A332 will do the job just fine, but rather a competitor to the short-haul version. Coincidentially, or not as the case might be, Airbus got a gap in their product line-up there, as others have pointed out. If they can make a model that'll also work as a freighter, as opposed to the 7E7, that's just one more selling point.

Otherwise it might just be Airbus using Boeing tactics, i.e. trying to steal some of the 7E7 sunlight by proposing something a bit different - like Boeing did with the Cronic Snoozer vs the A380. Politics certainly plays a large part in this game.

No (or very little) heavy maintenance on the 7E7? Have they found the holy grail?

I do not know about any variant(OR new number)but in the past week I have been approached by Airbus about an engineering position for(and I quote)a new Aircraft project.Thats all I know never thought to ask any details such as number,I only remembered to ask how much they were prepared to pay me!!

BEagle. The FO on my last trip, who ironically flew C-5s and worked for some regional airlines, truly hates the CRJ more than anybody I have ever been around! Especially the "enhanced" 44-seat version. Who needs 50 seats? Better to exploit a contract 'loophole', worry about the market later; a bit like "kill them all, let God sort them out" in the Middle Ages [the Black Prince?]. This guy tries to commute to work on them and it sounds like commuter hell. I avoided the entire topic after we taxied out, or tried to. Once our (main "flows" done) takeoff flaps were set, controls checked, stab trim set and anti-skid switch + speed bugs set, I knew that we were ok, no matter what his blood pressure and external temperature.

Let's hear it for marketing brilliance-multi-million jets with downgrades to 44 seats serving large citys on the East Coast :rolleyes: . What is the face symbol for people with glassy-eyes who drift out of the Bulldog Cafe near the Leidseplein in Amsterdam?:\