Potential customers debate Boeing and Airbus narrow-body strategies-Seattle Times

PHOENIX — In the narrow-body-war that has broken out in the airplane business, major u.s. carriers Delta and United target for Airbus if the plot an aircraft move that airlines stopped aging and now Boeing 757 jets.

Airbus is offering a brand new fuel-efficient engine on its 220-seat A321 aircraft by 2016. Boeing does not need a direct competitor to the end of the Decade.

"Delta and United should be in the shiny eyes of Airbus," said Doug Runte, managing director of Piper Jaffray if he moderated a panel of the industry discuss the A321 Monday at the annual Conference of the international society of transport aircraft Trading (ISTAT) in Phoenix.

The top buyers and financiers of aircraft at the Conference focused on the competitive and different strategies of Boeing and Airbus.

Boeing is looking for the launch of a new airplane, the 797, which the top of the 737 family as well as the 757 would replace.

Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Jim Albaugh said the company wants the disastrous delays that happened on the 787 Dreamliner program by not too much new technology to add on to avoid the 797.

"We must reduce the risk and to ensure that what we are biting off is not as much as we on the 787 bite," said Albaugh. "I don't want this plane to be the son of 787."

Still, if it goes ahead, the 797 won't arrive until the end of the Decade.

Bombardier executive Gary Scott made a powerful case that his new CSeries jet will dominate the low end of the narrow-body aircraft category, from 100 to 150 seats.

Albaugh virtually admitted that Boeing will not even bother with that segment of the market. Airbus is not going to be a new engine in its smallest aircraft until 2017, perhaps in the same practice to admit.

But on the high side of the small-jet market, the big boys are going head to head with very different approaches.

Sigthor Einarsson, until a few weeks ago, said the Deputy chief executive of Icelandair, his airline — the all-757 operator looking to renew the fleet — was very pleased by moving it to the Airbus A321, providing an option that didn't exist before re engine.

Einarsson, who still consults for Icelandair, said that the A321neo (for "new engine option") will be able to fly virtually all Icelandair the current routes. "Icelandair pleasure have an option that comes close to the 757," he said in an interview.

Einarsson said Boeing that Airbus has caught in the position of offering an all-new aircraft because a new engine not covered by the low wings of the 737 without a significant redesign.

But now that Boeing goes on the prospects for a new aircraft, he said, Icelandair "examines carefully what Boeing 797 on the doing."

He said the airline may wait until 2020 or even further as it should, and will not conclude it gets more detail of Boeing.

Earlier Monday, predicted Adam Pilarski, a leading aviation analyst with consulting firm Avitas, that Boeing would be forced to a new engine on the 737 this year.

Pilarski said that by 2020 there is no revolutionary technology available next to the new engines that Airbus will use to justify spending the huge sums required to start a new plane.

"Maybe something quick is a better idea," said Pilarski. "Ten years of waiting, you help the Chinese and the Russians a bridgehead."

But Albaugh, in his presentation later in the day, repeated that he sees no business case for putting a new engine on the 737. Pilarski he bet a bottle of wine that his prediction wrong.

Albaugh said the current 737 will be built in Renton for at least 15 or 20 years, even after every new jet service.

He said that he wants to use Boeing engineering talent to build a new aircraft.

"We have simply trained 18,000 engineers how to do development programs," said Albaugh, referring to the new 787 and 747-8 jet projects. "It is our intention to the role that people in new programs."

Boeing also committed to the development of a new, larger version of the Dreamliner, the 787-10.

Albaugh allowed at the Conference that the first 787-8 version of the Dreamliner will not meet its original performance specification, although he said it will be able to fly the routes the airlines need the payloads they need.

Over time, Albaugh said, the plane will be improved and the promised performance will eventually meet.

"When that date will be, I can't tell you," he said.

Norman Liu, chief executive of the world's largest aircraft leasing company GECAS, said in an interview will be years before it is clear whether Boeing or Airbus had the better narrow-body strategy.

"By 2025, there will be thousands and thousands and thousands of current versions of both the A320 and 737, and the A320neo and what the new Boeing aircraft," said Liu.

"Maybe in 2030 you can stock of who was right or wrong."

Dominic Gates: 206-464-2963 or dgates@seattletimes.com