Now that Airbus has launched the A320NEO and Boeing still deciding what to do in the narrowbody arena, do you think that the A320 will ever overtake the 737? Airbus is saying they hope to sell around 4,000 of the A320NEOs. If this happens the gap will close considerably on production totals, the numbers currently look like this
A320 family delivered 4385, Backlog 2441
B737 family delivered 6594, Backlog 2237
What do you think; could we see the A320 out sell the 737?
I think the chances are very slim. Boeing is going to climb out of the 787 hole and use their engineering power to create a brand new model, the 797 which will beat the Airbus in fuel saving, maintenance cost and everything else Airbus is doing with the A320NEO. Boeing is problably already working on this project but with limited engineering resources assigned to it.
Gravity always wins!
Hello Goose
Thant's a good question!
My answer is no. Probably you can already find the answer in the fact that Airbus will still keep the actual engine options (CFM56 and V2500) alongside the NEO ones.
If there Airbus still belive there is market for the "good old" A320 series, why not hope the same for the "good old" 737NG?
And Airbus's view is realistic: both A320 "classic" and NEO have a market.
New customer probably will opt for the new version, but also old customers (such as Lufthansa) with a huge admount of A320 gradually approaching 20-year-age, to roll over can look into the new NEO option. And Lufthansa has already shown in the past not to be afraid to change engine type as they bought IAE powered A321 breaking the previous CFMI tradition powering their A320/A319.
This option will be probably choosed by a few other operator that are in LH conditions (with a huge admounts of early serial numbers), such as IB, AF.... New customers coming out for A320 normally will place minors orders. I don't see big 737 customers going for a 737-to-A320 swap based on NEO reason, as the NEO advantages are a good selling point for operators with already A320-trained pilots and technicians and a quantity of spares at stock.
But some other customer such as British Airways that havea quite young IAE A320 fleet (except some early CFMI models already phasing out) will probably retrim its fleet numbers with (small) numbers of IAE versions, and wait for a clean sheet design for rolling over their fleet.
The second option (retrim of fleet with actual models) will be, I guess, the choice of most actual A320 operators, as the major part of actual 4200-strong A320 fleet has been produced in recent time (early 1990s production has been quite slow and for a small number of big customers).
The key dilemma now is when will we see a new clean sheet design for that maret. Probably this will depend on the Boeing choice on the 737 engine options. If they will choose the new clean sheet design, then we will probably see it in early 2020s, followed shortly by Airbus. If Boeing is going for a new engine option as well, we will need to wait some more time to see a clean sheet desing, likely 2025-2030.
In conclusion of this I guess that sales of the NEO will depend on next Boeng moove, i.e. if Boeing will go for a clean sheet desing, apart from actual backlogs for A320 "classic" & 737NG versions, the NEO will anyhow sell less than the A320 "classic" version itsself, marginally affecting the 737NG orders (probably the NEO totalising no more than 1000 units); if, otherwise the 737 will go for a new engine choice as well, the long wait for a new generation of narrowbody will slowly roll most of the fleets into the new types, maybe getting close to the optimstic Airbus figures, for both manufacturer.
/HAL9000
The real question will be who dominates the annual sales figures going forward , rather than outright plane for plane quantities . Will the A320NEO give Airbus a significant advantage in annual single aisle sales over Boeings B737?. Will the airlines see a major advantage in taking an A320NEO over a Classic engine A320 or B737 ?. Fuel prices , future used aircraft re-sale values will all play into what airlines choose to do . Many may hang on for an 'all new' aircraft from Boeing .
According to analysts Boeing will not be offering anything into the NEO market until around 2015, i cannot see them waiting that long so the only option will be to offer an all new 737NG.
Agree that there will be loads of A320s coming up to their end of shelf life soon, but the large operators have been please with the A320, so i guess these will order the NEO. And with increasing fuel prices this makes sense, meaning Airbus will be in a stronger position orders wise in the future
I don't see that big number of ageing A320, nor a big number of operators willing to roll them over with factory-new aircraft.
Big early customers are just a few (LH, AF, IB...) and they will probably go for the NEO as they need to roll over a big part of their A320 "classic" in the 2015-2020 perdiod.
A lot of other ageing A320 are in hands of small operators via lessors (such as GECAS, ILFC...), normally on short leases. Those operators normally retrim their fleet size on short notice based on short term traffic figures. Those operators normally doesn't go for factory-new aircraft (not even leased).
All later big operators of A320, such as BA, AZ, BD will not start replacing their planes before 2020-2025. They will probably need to review the fleet size and maybe order a few aircraft from time to time, but does it make sense to add only 10 A320NEO if you already have 70 A320 "Classic" that you will not phase out in a 10-15 years term? Moreover those operators will see into the possibility to replace their A320 "classics" with a real new generation (i.e. clean sheet design) available by that term.
But of course, if the clean sheet design schedue start getting long (i.e. 2030), the time will make the fortune of the NEO. This scenery will be reality if Boeing will go for a new engine option for the 737 as well, I guess.
So the paradox is that the NEO's fortune depends on Boeing choice to re-engine the 737!