New competitors in the single-aisle airliner market have driven Airbus to look beyond current technologies to identify the required characteristics for an A320-series replacement to enter service in 15 or more years. According to John Leahy, Airbus chief operating officer for customers, successful airliner programs have a 40-year life, so the European manufacturer’s need is for “future technology for future aircraft” that will accommodate advances in all areas.
And it isn’t just Boeing that Airbus needs to worry about. Strategy and future-programs senior vice president Ian Dawkins, speaking before he left the OEM to head OnAir, the Airbus/SITA cabin communications joint venture, said the established Airbus/Boeing single-aisle duopoly will end with the mainline-market entry of designs such as Canada’s Bombardier C Series, as well as of projects from China’s Commercial Air Corp. (Comac) and United Aircraft in Russia. However, he claimed that the Bombardier C Series, Comac C919 and United Aircraft MS-21 designs planned for introduction in the next decade provide “no step change” in technology.
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