The official opening of the Paris Air Show is still four days away, but there are a few airlines who can't wait to announce their (A32Xneo) orders.
Cebu Pacific and GoAir both placed orders today.
Cebu Pacific (I did not even have that on my list yesterday) placed an MoU for 30 A321neo. They also firmed up options for 7 A320 (Classic). Cebu stated that with the A321neo they will be able to fly to destinations which cannot be reached with the A320 today, namely Northern Japan, Australia and India. They will outfit their A321neo's with 220 seats - I have not heard of any airline with such a dense seating in a A321. Air Berlin has 210 seats, Air France in the domestic market version 206 seats.
And then there is GoAir - for 72 A320neo. I had them on my list for Paris, but for a maximum of 70 - well, not too far off. GoAir is owned by the Wadia Group, a powerful conglomerate, and got a new CEO just a few days ago, the former Chief Revenue Officer from Air One (Giorgio De Roni), which was (more or less) forced to merge with the old Alitalia.
GoAir has 10 A320 in the fleet, with 10 more to come in the next two years. By then, with a fleet of 20 aircraft and after 5 years of operation, they can fly internationally.
Both airlines fleets are powered by the CFM56 today and both airlines gave no indication of engine selection yet. It remains to be seen if my assumption that the PW1100G has the better cards in the indian market. At least the planned first delivery date (2015) for GoAir's A320neo seems to indicate a GTF selection here.
6/15/2011
Airbus A320neo order speculations
We are just days away from the Paris Air Show 2011 and every day there are more speculations about who will order how many aircraft at the show – and which ones.
The one thing that seems to be clear though is that the A320neo will get the bulk of orders.
So let me take part in the speculation game and start with the “Star” of the show:
Here is my guessing about who will order how many and the engine choice:
AirAsia | 150-200 | LEAP-X |
Republic | 40-80 | PW1100G |
Qatar | 30-50 | PW1100G |
GECAS | 50-100 | LEAP-X |
ALC | 25-50 | LEAP-X/PW1100G |
CIT | 20-30 | LEAP-X/PW1100G |
GoAir | 50-70 | PW1100G |
SAS | 30 | PW1100G |
In total we could see more than 600 orders/commitments for the A320neo family, with both engine makers getting their share of the market.
As for the LEAP-X it is crucial to get orders – GE seems to invest heavily in the AirAsia order, with GE becoming a sponsor of Tony Fernandes’ Formula 1 Lotus Team. Even if GE says that those two deals are complete separate…
As the CFM56 is AirAsia’s current engine choice, CFM was in the front runner position anyway. It remains to be seen, if Fernandes managed Leahy to convince him that a conversion of orders for the A320 ”Classic” can be transformed into A320neo orders and how many. And we will also see if this deal will be even larger than the yet-to-be-finalised order of 180 aircraft by Indigo.
Republic already placed a deposit in Toulouse
If Qatar
GECAS of course is the most natural LEAP-X customer. Nothing to add here...
After opposing the A320neo from the start, even Steven Udvar-Hazy seems to jump on the bandwagon now, as was reported earlier. I expect a split between LEAP-X and the PW1100G here, as well as from CIT.
GoAir obviously is in the market also for at least 50 A320neo. That seems a lot for an airline that has just 10 aircraft by now, but the fast growing Indian market is hungry for aircraft. The V2500 has a large customer base in India
SAS is looking for the A320neo, too, and I think this is the airline that is speculated to be the first neo-customer currently flying the B737NG. They have looked into the CSeries also, but decided to preserve cash by leasing 2nd hand B737-700. SAS did not rule out to order the CSeries later, so they could lean towards the PW1100G on the A320neo to have engine commonality (sort of), if they ever decide to order the CSeries.
There might be others to come forward and order more A320neo – who know. John Leahy understands how to do good marketing and always pull out a rabbit out of the hat…
6/10/2011
A350-1000 with more range - Update II
I made a quick assessment how the new -1000/-1100 family could look like:
I enlarged the wing, so that the A350-1000 keeps the same wing loading.
I have to admit that this is a very rough assessment as I have not looked into things like climb times, takeoff performance and so on...
| A350-1000 | A350-1100 | A350-1100ER | |
| Pax | 350 | 380 | 380 |
| Range | 8500 nm | 8000 nm | 8500nm |
| MTOW | 314 t | 318 t | 331 t |
| OEW | 152 t | 157 t | 159 t |
| SLS TO Thrust | 98klbf | 100klbf | 104klbf |
I enlarged the wing, so that the A350-1000 keeps the same wing loading.
I have to admit that this is a very rough assessment as I have not looked into things like climb times, takeoff performance and so on...
6/08/2011
A350-1000 with more range - Update
Flightglobal has a new take on what is going on with the A350-1000. Contrary to Scott Hamilton, Max Kingsley-Jones thinks that the wing would be part of the design change, thus getting larger. This could indicate two things:
1. The Thrust/Weight-Ratio could get down without sacrificing runway performance as the larger wing would provide more lift. In other words, the MTOW could be lifted more than the ~5% gain in takeoff thrust, enabling the aircraft to carry more payload (especially cargo) over the reportedly new design range of 8500nm.
2. The investment for a larger wing and a "new" engine would make more sense, if another type would be added to the A350 family - call it the A350-1100 for now. With a further stretch of 4m it would have a fuselage length of roughly 80m, representing the ultimate stretch and would be a real B777-300ER competitor in terms of passenger capacity. The question then only is, if the range of the -1100 would be limited to 8000nm, comparable to the B777-300ER range, or if the -1100 would also get a range suitable for LAX-DXB (I now think that the 8500nm should work in >90% of the time for that route). If so, the "new" engine should really be a "new" engine - not just with an enlarged core, but also with a larger fan, as the thrust requirement would be more in the range of 105klbf. That would have implications to the basic design of the aircraft, especially the length of the undercarriage.
So Airbus could end up with the sub-families fo the A350 - the -900 and the -800 on the lower end and the -1000 and the -1100 on the upper end, very much comparable with the A340.
But again - until June 18 all is about speculation! But that's the fun with it...
1. The Thrust/Weight-Ratio could get down without sacrificing runway performance as the larger wing would provide more lift. In other words, the MTOW could be lifted more than the ~5% gain in takeoff thrust, enabling the aircraft to carry more payload (especially cargo) over the reportedly new design range of 8500nm.
2. The investment for a larger wing and a "new" engine would make more sense, if another type would be added to the A350 family - call it the A350-1100 for now. With a further stretch of 4m it would have a fuselage length of roughly 80m, representing the ultimate stretch and would be a real B777-300ER competitor in terms of passenger capacity. The question then only is, if the range of the -1100 would be limited to 8000nm, comparable to the B777-300ER range, or if the -1100 would also get a range suitable for LAX-DXB (I now think that the 8500nm should work in >90% of the time for that route). If so, the "new" engine should really be a "new" engine - not just with an enlarged core, but also with a larger fan, as the thrust requirement would be more in the range of 105klbf. That would have implications to the basic design of the aircraft, especially the length of the undercarriage.
So Airbus could end up with the sub-families fo the A350 - the -900 and the -800 on the lower end and the -1000 and the -1100 on the upper end, very much comparable with the A340.
But again - until June 18 all is about speculation! But that's the fun with it...
6/06/2011
A350-1000 with more range - implications for B737 successor?
Scott Hamilton just came out with this story: the A350-1000 will get more range (500nm) and a more powerful Trent XWB engine (+5000lbf).
A quick calculation revealed that 500nm more range need about 12.3t more MTOW. About 10 tonnes are for the extra fuel burned to cover the extra 500nm, about 2 tonnes needs the structure to carry the heavier aircraft, the balance goes for fuel reserves, as these are calculated in dependence of the actual flown range.
Thrust-to-weight ratio thus will be largely unchanged, runway performance probably a little bit worse, if the wing is unchanged. Compared to the B777-300ER, the wing is not heavily loaded, so I do not believe Airbus will enlarge the wing.
Scott writes that even the 8500nm will not meet Emirates desire of being able to fly Dubai - Los Angeles nonstop. The great circle distance for DXB-LAX is about 7250nm, so there is a 17% range margin. But is this enough to counter strong headwinds. A quick calculation shows that 17% of Ma0.85 (cruising speed of the A350) are equal to about 83nm/hr, meaning that if the average headwind on the route is higher than 83 knots, a technical stop would be necessary. I do not the average wind speed on the route over the north pole, but I could imagine that average wind speeds of 83knots and more ar possible.
The calculation also confirms that Emirates second desire - to add more pax - cannot be part of the change in the A350-1000 specification. So I wonder what is the rationality behind these changes? The 777-300ER has slightly less than the 8000nm of the "old" -1000 configuration, the 500 extra miles is good for a couple of extra city pairs, but does that justify the pain? The pain is probably bigger for RR than for Airbus, as these 5000lbf more of thrust will very likely mean that the whole core has to be changed, which means a lot of investment.
The main reason for that change might be to prevent Boeing from concentrating on the B737 successor. Airbus might hope that Boeing now feels more pressure on the B777-300ER and to concentrate R&D resources here and "only" to re-engine to B737 as Airbus always predicted.
And Airbus is apparently not alone: the recent Bernstein Research Note also suggests that Boeing should re-engine. Richard Aboulafia, VP of Teal Group, also thinks that a B737RE is the best answer to the A32XNEO, as one can reread in the AirInsight Paris Airshow Discussion transcript.
I guess we can expect the official Airbus announcement on Saturday, June 18th at the press briefing.
One is for sure - this years Paris Air Show is getting more and more interesting.
A quick calculation revealed that 500nm more range need about 12.3t more MTOW. About 10 tonnes are for the extra fuel burned to cover the extra 500nm, about 2 tonnes needs the structure to carry the heavier aircraft, the balance goes for fuel reserves, as these are calculated in dependence of the actual flown range.
Thrust-to-weight ratio thus will be largely unchanged, runway performance probably a little bit worse, if the wing is unchanged. Compared to the B777-300ER, the wing is not heavily loaded, so I do not believe Airbus will enlarge the wing.
Scott writes that even the 8500nm will not meet Emirates desire of being able to fly Dubai - Los Angeles nonstop. The great circle distance for DXB-LAX is about 7250nm, so there is a 17% range margin. But is this enough to counter strong headwinds. A quick calculation shows that 17% of Ma0.85 (cruising speed of the A350) are equal to about 83nm/hr, meaning that if the average headwind on the route is higher than 83 knots, a technical stop would be necessary. I do not the average wind speed on the route over the north pole, but I could imagine that average wind speeds of 83knots and more ar possible.
The calculation also confirms that Emirates second desire - to add more pax - cannot be part of the change in the A350-1000 specification. So I wonder what is the rationality behind these changes? The 777-300ER has slightly less than the 8000nm of the "old" -1000 configuration, the 500 extra miles is good for a couple of extra city pairs, but does that justify the pain? The pain is probably bigger for RR than for Airbus, as these 5000lbf more of thrust will very likely mean that the whole core has to be changed, which means a lot of investment.
The main reason for that change might be to prevent Boeing from concentrating on the B737 successor. Airbus might hope that Boeing now feels more pressure on the B777-300ER and to concentrate R&D resources here and "only" to re-engine to B737 as Airbus always predicted.
And Airbus is apparently not alone: the recent Bernstein Research Note also suggests that Boeing should re-engine. Richard Aboulafia, VP of Teal Group, also thinks that a B737RE is the best answer to the A32XNEO, as one can reread in the AirInsight Paris Airshow Discussion transcript.
I guess we can expect the official Airbus announcement on Saturday, June 18th at the press briefing.
One is for sure - this years Paris Air Show is getting more and more interesting.
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