Airbus’s launch last week of a new engine option for its A320 single-aisle series has for the moment turned the proverbial spotlight directly on rival Boeing and its own line of narrowbodies. Indeed, the competitive implications of re-engining the 737–or not–now appear unequivocal. If Boeing chooses not to follow suit with the 737, by 2016 the new line of A320s, dubbed the A320neo, could hold a double-digit fuel burn advantage over the Boeing product. Granted, the airplane will cost some $6 million more than the standard A320s, but Airbus apparently feels it has received enough positive feedback from potential airline customers to justify the project’s more than €1 billion ($1.3 billion) development cost.
No matter what Airbus ultimately spends on the new product, the move poses something of a dilemma for Boeing. Just this week, Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Jim Albaugh told London’s Financial Times that the company still could not see “a compelling reason” to re-engine the 737. Albaugh’s comments mirrored the sentiments expressed by Boeing chairman and CEO Jim McNerney and CFO James Bell, both of whom have said that the company’s customers would rather wait perhaps another four years for a completely new airplane design, largely because Boeing’s calculations show that neither the Pratt & Whitney PW1000G nor the CFM Leap-X–the engines chosen to power the A320neo–could deliver double-digit fuel savings on the existing 737 airframe. Further complicating matters for Boeing, the 737’s engines hang closer to the ground than the A320’s, requiring a redesign of at least the landing gear and considerably more development investment.
