The commercial aircraft business is a brutal one. The cost to develop and certify a new airframe is enormous, and any major technological advance carries risk that can be existential for the developing company. Boeing famously gambled the company on the 747 and was rewarded for success with a production program that has run for half a century. Today, costs are even higher, but in the critical midsize commercial airliner market, Boeing has recently announced that the firm will not be developing a new airplane to replace passenger versions of the 767 and 757 this decade. Some analysts feel that this will give Airbus a distinct advantage. Boeing feels that engine technology is not ready to support the development of a new airliner in this class and will continue to offer development versions of the 737 and 787 for the mid-size market. It’s a controversial decision.
Access all episodes of This Week in Engineering on engineering.com TV along with all of our other series.
Transcript of this week's show:
To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and/or videos to which the transcript may be referring, watch the above video.
If you are an airline looking to add serious capacity, you have relatively few airframe options. There was a time when the American aerospace industry alone had civil airframe offerings from companies including Boeing, Douglas, Lockheed, Convair, Martin and Fairchild. Europe had several major air framers, as well, and even the Russians sold into the market with Ilyushin and Tupolev large jetliners.
Both Boeing and Airbus offer a range of airliner products, from short range metro haulers to large transcontinental jets. Both also offer freighter versions of those passenger jets.
Airbus has a continuous history of new-product development. But Boeing Company CEO David Calhoun, speaking at the firm’s annual investor conference last week, stated that the next clean sheet Boeing commercial airliner will not be introduced until the middle of the next decade.
This announcement has surprised many analysts who have expected that a new midsized aircraft designed to fill the gap left by the Boeing 757 and 767 twin jet airliners would become the 797, leveraging 787 Dreamliner technology in a fuel-efficient package. And fuel efficiency is the key as Calhoun noted that customers will demand 20 to 30 percent cost savings over existing aircraft, only a part of which can be delivered by lightweight composites and improved aerodynamics.
New engines will be needed, engines which don’t currently exist. The CEO also noted that increasingly stringent emissions tests may also be a pacing factor in new powerplant and new airframe development.
Instead, Boeing will continue to iterate the 737 family, and develop the newest versions of the 787 Dreamliner and the 777, which is expected to win a considerable share of the replacement market for four engine heavyweights, mainly the Airbus A380 and Boeing’s own 747.
But the real battle in commercial aviation is in narrow bodies. Boeing’s order book is backlogged to the tune of just over 5,000 aircraft, of which over 80 percent are 737 models. Airbus has a reported backlog of over 7,000 jets, of which over 90 percent are A220 and A320 models. Depending on production rate, both companies have 6 to 10 years of aircraft production booked right now, without taking on a single additional order.
Boeing anticipates that by 2050, air travel will carry more than 10 billion passengers per year, generate 9 trillion dollars in economic activity and support 180 million jobs worldwide. Producing enough airframes to satisfy that demand will require new airplanes and new production capability at major air framers, including the addition of China’s COMAC, who have officially launched their C919 airliner with some 300 recently announced orders.
Engines are key. If they’re available, economical and environmentally friendly, the commercial airplane industry is going to be healthy for decades.