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DUBAI -- A few hours before Ethiopian Airlines announced its order for 12 Airbus A350-900 aircraft yesterday, I had a chance to sit down with CEO Girma Wake to discuss his airline's plans for global expansion with its three new aircraft types, the A350, 777-200LR and 787.

I started off by asking Mr. Wake about the role of his newly purchased A350 and how it will fit in along side the 787 and 777-200LR.

"These are complementary [aircraft] for us," wake says. "The 777-200LR has a very good range and especially from the Addis Ababa Airport, its very difficult with the altitude."

"We are at 8,000 feet above sea level. It's very difficult to get full benefits of engine performance. With the 200LR we get very good advantage with performance. Secondly, we have been growing the last five years -- 20% year over year -- and that necessitates an airplane that can take over 300 passengers. And the airplanes that we have today, the 767 carry about 270 passengers and the load requires we go over 300 [passengers] and that is why we picked the 777-200LR and we expect that the 787 to do the mid-range for us. The A350 will also help us operate the long range with that older fleet. Both of them can serve on the same route."

I asked Mr. Wake directly about his airline's order for the 787 and Ethiopian's role as the African launch customer of the type and whether or not the title still held.

"Yes, that is still the case," he replied. "We are taking all of the airplanes that we have ordered."

Wake says his airline's first 787 is now expected in mid-2011, which is around the same time Ethiopian will be "taking most of our 777s." He also revealed that two of the 10 787s on order would be 787-9s which would be delivered "sometime in 2013'.

With the performance of the 787 an open question until flight testing begins, I asked Mr. Wake about the prospect of early aircraft being delivered to the airline overweight.

"There is an overweight situation. We are not very happy that it is over weight," says Wake.

"But even considering the fact that it is overweight, we believe that for our mid-range routes, it is still a very attractive airplane like Europe to Africa [and] within Africa. And if we can leave the Far East and the American operation to the 777 and the A350, the 787 will definitely be a very good replacement for us for the 767 and 757 routes. It will still be a lot better."

Wake says that Boeing is trying to "come up with various solutions" to meet contractual range, payload and fuel consumption targets for the 787-9, adding that "If they come up with a solution, we will take the -9.  If they don't come up with a solution we will keep the -8, we have that in our contract. In any case, initially only two -9s were contracted for us, but if it does not work we can still go with -8, but we'll take all the [orders]."
 
I then asked Wake about the introduction of the A350 and his airline's plans for the new long-range widebody set to arrive in 2017.

"We have plans to dry lease some A350s before that if we see that demand is picking up, the new sectors that will come up gradually will be Brazil - Sao Paulo- more points in the USA, we want to fly to Canada and we want to expand to more points in the far east like Shanghai, Kulala Lumpur, so on and so forth," says Wake.

Wake made a point of saying that Ethiopian Airlines will double in the next five years growing 20% year-over-year. Currently Ethiopian moves 3 million passengers per year.

I concluded the interview asking about his shift as a long-time Boeing customer to a split fleet with the purchase of 12 A350-900s. Wake addressed the decision in this way: 

"We had a very small fleet before. Diversification when you only have 30 airplanes is not a bad thing to do, but when you have 50-plus [aircraft], you can still accommodate it. Diversification is not cheap. So, if you have the right quantity you can still do that and we believe now we have the right number of airplanes in our system that we can diversify, he says.

"And secondly," Wake adds. "I believe it is always better to put your eggs different baskets. Putting them all in one basket could be a problem. So, and we see the airplane also, the A350, when it was originally planned it was not as good. The new revised A350, at least on paper, is very good."

Photo Credit Airbus

DUBAI -- Airbus will offer fuel-saving winglets on its A320 family aircraft beginning in 2012.

The specially designed 'sharklets' will provide a 3.5% fuel burn savings on routes longer than 1500 nm. Air New Zealand will launch the new sharklets at the end of 2012 as part of its recent order for A320 aircraft. Airbus says the A321 and A319 will follow in 2013. Airbus has not yet decided if it will offer the winglet on the A318.

Airbus claims the winglets will offer a boost of 110 nm in range or a payload increase of 500 kg or about 2 passengers.

The winglets will not be offered as a retrofit, but Airbus says it is working with Aviation Partners to provide a simpler design on existing A320 aircraft.

On the flightdeck of the Pratt & Whitney PW4000-powered freighter (MSN 1004) for the 3h 50min flight were Airbus test pilots Philippe Perrin and Martin Scheuermann, accompanied by test-flight engineers Wolfgang Brueggemann, Stephane Vaux and Pascal Verneau.

With just under a day to go before her maiden sortie, the Airbus A330-200F underwent rejected takeoff (RTO) testing at the Toulouse-Blagnac Airport in the south of France. The high-speed taxi tests are part of the final series of check-outs on the new freighter before its scheduled first flight tomorrow morning.

The first A330F (F-WWYE - MSN1004) is now wearing marketing stickers on either side of its windowless fuselage. The left side of the aircraft reads "the right aircraft right now" and the right side reads "Efficient, reliable, profitable".

RTO testing brings the aircraft to just under the takeoff decision speed known as V1. At anytime below the V1 speed, the aircraft is able to safely stop in the remaining length of the runway. The decision speed is determined based on many factors including the length of the runway, weight of the aircraft, thrust rating of the engine, as well as runway and weather conditions.

Airbus will be streaming live video of the A330F's first flight on its website beginning at 8:30 GMT (3:30 AM ET) Thursday morning.

Photo Credit Eurospot

One small item on Airbus.com caught my eye this morning:

First flight of the A330-200F freighter

5 November 2009

Toulouse, France

The A330-200F's first flight is planned for 5 November (weather permitting) from Airbus' Toulouse, France headquarters. This maiden takeoff will mark a key milestone for the cargo version of Airbus' popular A330 jetliner, which is the first new mid-sized freighter to be launched in 40 years. Photos, video and articles from the event will be posted after the first flight.

The first Airbus A330-200F, now fully painted, came out in the sunlight at Toulouse after departing the paint shop. The aircraft, registered F-WWYE (MSN1004), will head to the flight line toward the end of the month and will be handed over to flight test to begin ground testing ahead of its planned November 2009 maiden flight.

So you're probably asking, "What's up with that nose gear blister?"

From an April 8th article on flightglobal.com:

Images released by Airbus of the first A330-200F on the move in Toulouse reveal the modification made to the landing gear and forward fuselage to address the nose-down pitch that is a characteristic of the A330/A340 and provide a level cabin floor during loading.

This has been achieved by lowering the nose-gear leg attachment points to raise the nose height, in turn requiring a larger gear bay that is faired by a blister on the underside of the nose.

Photo Credit Airbus

The never ending battle between Boeing and Airbus to claim the title of worlds biggest aircraft maker got a little bit tighter this week.

Through the third quarter of 2009, Airbus says it had delivered 358 planes to Boeing's 359. Each company says it plans to deliver between 480 and 485 aircraft this year.

While the rest of the civil market has taken a major production beating, especially on the business jet side, the commercial market has remained strong. There are more than a few people who are of the mind that 2009 deliveries are a significantly lagging indicator to the true state of the marketplace. Any pronouncement that Boeing and Airbus have weathered the storm of the global recession in production terms is a bit premature.

Suppliers to Boeing and Airbus are of the mind that production has to slow, with 737 and A320 rates likely to fall in 2010 or 2011.

Each company says that it has no plans to cut rate due to back-filling of orders to compensate for deferrals, but with the backlogs barely growing compared to previous years, back-filling is only viable for so long.

On the Boeing side, one needs only to look at history to see how the company works within the cycle. Without fail for the last half century, Boeing has announced a significant production cut on years ending in zero ±1 year. To quote Mark Twain: "History doesn't repeat itself - at best it sometimes rhymes"

At the bottom of Page 82 of Airbus' Global Market Forecast are three interesting concepts for the European airframer's next generation narrowbody concept. The A30X is now not expected for another 15 years, but the concepts provide an interesting glimpse into the potential for non-conventional concepts that could define the replacement of the A320 family. Rear mounted engines seem to be in the imagination of the company's engineers, with options for both ducted and unducted configuration, as well as a Sonic Cruiser style model, presumably for long range operations.

Radically pushing the envelope of new aircraft configurations will invariable run into interesting challenges for airline operations and airport layouts. This, of course, will be an interesting one to watch.

Hat tip to Keesje for the spot