Air France seeks new design
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Air France seeks new design
An interesting clip from Flight:
Air France chief executive Jean-Cyril Spinetta is urging manufacturers to "face reality" and accelerate plans "to meet the environmental needs of our passengers and our need to reduce costs", given the increase in oil prices.
"Things are moving very quickly and dramatically. All of us have to work on a sustainable basis with oil at $100 per barrel or maybe $130 per barrel," says Spinetta. At current oil prices, he says manufacturers should not wait until a 20% fuel-efficiency improvement is technologically feasible because even a 15% improvement would bring significant relief.
Air France operates around 150 Airbus narrowbodies and fellow group carrier KLM has 50 737s. But the larger seat segment is where Air France senior vice-president for new aircraft and corporate planning Pierre Vellay sees a most pressing requirement for the airline, and where he wants to see the manufacturers develop a larger, possibly twin-aisle, solution.
"The priority is around the replacing the A320/A321s," he says. "Our plan is to move the requirement from 120-200 seats to 150-240 seats and to get the right model covering this family. It's more about the costs. We have no specific needs about range. We are not pushing for extra performance."
Sounds rather as though the gap between the A321 and A330 is becoming an issue? As some of us have said on several occasions.
Something like a New Generation A310, perhaps, Pierre?
Air France chief executive Jean-Cyril Spinetta is urging manufacturers to "face reality" and accelerate plans "to meet the environmental needs of our passengers and our need to reduce costs", given the increase in oil prices.
"Things are moving very quickly and dramatically. All of us have to work on a sustainable basis with oil at $100 per barrel or maybe $130 per barrel," says Spinetta. At current oil prices, he says manufacturers should not wait until a 20% fuel-efficiency improvement is technologically feasible because even a 15% improvement would bring significant relief.
Air France operates around 150 Airbus narrowbodies and fellow group carrier KLM has 50 737s. But the larger seat segment is where Air France senior vice-president for new aircraft and corporate planning Pierre Vellay sees a most pressing requirement for the airline, and where he wants to see the manufacturers develop a larger, possibly twin-aisle, solution.
"The priority is around the replacing the A320/A321s," he says. "Our plan is to move the requirement from 120-200 seats to 150-240 seats and to get the right model covering this family. It's more about the costs. We have no specific needs about range. We are not pushing for extra performance."
Sounds rather as though the gap between the A321 and A330 is becoming an issue? As some of us have said on several occasions.
Something like a New Generation A310, perhaps, Pierre?
