Airbus: June 2009 Archives

Tony Fernandes announced his order with a little help from twitter, but here's the flash from Flight. Look for a lot more on this story from our team later. Air Asia has got big plans for these aircraft.

Via Air Transport Intelligence:

PARIS 2009: AirAsia X orders up to 15 A350s
Paris (16 Jun 09 15:33 GMT)

AirAsia X has ordered 10 Airbus A350-900 aircraft and placed options on five more.

The Malaysian low-cost long-haul carrier disclosed the agreement at the Paris Air Show today.

First deliveries of the aircraft are due to take place in the first quarter of 2016.

AirAsia X had been weighing up the A350 against the Boeing 787 but earlier this month indicated it had settled on the Airbus twin-jet.

A350s are currently available only with the Rolls-Royce Trent XWB engine.

Photo Courtesy Mark Pilling

I had a brief moment to wander through the hall today and had a chance to admire the extreme detail of the Airbus A350 XWB mini mockup. The aircraft, which is displayed in four classes (First, Business, Premium Economy and Economy) also has a fully detailed flight deck with lit up displays. Unfortunately, the scale forward fuselage section (including window design) doesn't actually have a mock up inside of it (but rather a theater), so this will have to be the closest we get to the A350 XWB cabin at this year's Paris Air Show.

Qatar Airways announced orders for 24 A320 family aircraft this morning at the Paris Air Show. The order is split between 20 A320s and four A321s. Delivery of the aircraft will begin in 2010 and Qatar CEO Akbar Al Baker says the delivery slots were reserved as part of the
airline's 2008 order at the Farnborough Air Show, not taken from another carrier's deferrals. The 24 aircraft will be powered by IAE V2500 engines. The new narrowbodies will be deployed on Eastern Europe and south west Asia services.

Al Baker says it is ready to launch a low cost carrier in 90 days using an A321 if its market share is eroded by competitors.

Al Baker adds that the new airplanes will feature the latest Thales
IFE and eventually in-flight connectivity.

ILFC chief Steven Udvar-Hazy pulled no punches on the future of the A380, entertaining a cancellation, expressing concern about the production plan, conversion costs and future cargo variants.

"We are asking ourselves if we are really going to take delivery of the 10 planes," said Udvar-Hazy at this years IATA general meeting in Kuala Lumpur to German business weekly Wirtschaftswoche.

Udvar-Hazy cited changing market dynamics and waning interest in the European superjumbo as the factors driving the lessors decision making.

ILFC says it can cancel its order without penalty between January and June 2009, with options of delivery deferral or conversion to another aircraft type also being considered. It would be the first cancellation for the passenger version of the A380.

Udvar-Hazy expressed concern about the aircraft's ability to operate on as many routes as previously expected, adding that "interest is weaker than expected in particular among the Chinese."

"In this recession, operating economics are critical," said Sir Richard Branson exclusively to FlightBlogger.

"Airlines need to ensure that they have the right number of seats during a period of lower demand otherwise their bills are going to be unmanageable. A380 operators will be questioning if they've got the right aircraft at the right time and whether they can make it a profitable aircraft type over the next two years," said Branson.

Virgin Atlantic Airways holds firm orders for 6 A380 aircraft.

The A380 is good for niche routes but "if Dubai - New York doesn't work, I'm not sure what does," said Richard Aboulafia, vice president of analysis for the Teal Group.

Emirates, the largest customer for the A380, downsized its Dubai - New York-JFK flight on June 1st from a daily A380 to 777-300ER after poor load factors on the route.

ILFC's order for ten A380s is valued at $3 billion and is the only lessor to have placed an order for the type.

Udvar-Hazy also sees the estimated $25 million cost of converting the airplane from one airline to another as prohibitively for lessors. Adding, that the development of the A380 freighter variant is "dead."

Udvar-Hazy sees the slowing A380 production rate as a threat to Airbus as well.

"If I were Airbus I would be very worried," said Udvar-Hazy. "At current production rhythms, it will be very hard to make money with this plane," he said.

Airbus announced a 2009 A380 production cut on May 6th from 18 to 14 aircraft, with "more than 20" planned for delivery in 2010.

Aboulafia sees "no hope" that Airbus will ever be able to pay back its non-recurring launch costs and that the A380 program will survive on cash flow enabled by accelerated production, though the economy leaves the company in a precarious situation as it looks to the future.

"What matters now is the A350. That's a seriously important plane," says Aboulafia.

Airbus holds orders for 200 A380s from 16 customers.

This video was shot on board the flight deck of a Qatar Airways Airbus A330-200 (A7-ACB) and provides a VERY detailed look at the controls and displays of the long-haul twinjet. I recommend watching with the HD setting on to see all the detail. Like Air France, Qatar's A330s are also powered by General Electric CF6-80 engines. I didn't have a movie for today, so this hopefully will serve as a substitute, albeit considerably shorter than usual.

Word this morning of the tragic disappearance and presumed crash of Air France Flight 447 somewhere off the Northeastern coast of Brazil has the entire planet asking a lot of questions with few available answers. With so little information available, including the whereabouts of the aircraft, those desperately seeking information - the airline, the manufacturer, the traveling public, the news media and most importantly the friends and families of those on board - are left only to speculate what may have happened to the 228 souls on-board.

The Airbus A330-203 (F-GZCP), which went missing about 3.5 hrs after its departure from Rio De Janeiro enroute to Paris, was manufactured in 2005 with its first flight on February 25th followed by delivery on April 4th of that same year. The aircraft was the 660th A330 built by Airbus and was deployed on flights from Paris to cities like Bangalore, Philadelphia, Cairo, New York and Dubai.

In June 2005, F-GZCP (40J/179Y), powered by two General Electric CF6-80E1A3 engines, was responsible for inaugurating Air France's transatlantic service between Paris and Detroit.

Flight reports:

At 22:33 Brasilia local time, says the ministry, the aircraft made final radio contact with the eastern Brazilian Cindacta-3 Atlantic area control centre at Recife, one of four en route centres that oversee Brazilian airspace.

The aircraft contacted Cindacta-3 at the INTOL waypoint, some 350nm (565km) from Natal, a city on the Brazilian coast. It indicated that it would enter Dakar airspace, Senegal, at the TASIL waypoint - about 663nm (1,228km) from Natal just under 50min later, at 23:20 Brasilia time.

AF447 left Cindacta-3 radar surveillance from the island of Fernando de Noronha, at 22:48. At this time it was cruising at 35,000ft at 453kt, says the defence ministry, with indications that the flight was "normal".

The aircraft did not contact air traffic control around the time of the expected transit of TASIL.

The ministry says that Air France has informed Cindacta-3 that, about 54nm (100km) from TASIL the flight transmitted a technical message concerning loss of pressurisation and an electrical failure.

The early indications point to some type of weather event that caused the aircraft to send a ACARS message signaling an electrical circuit failure around the time it hit turbulence during its Atlantic crossing. Air France says that, as of now, no wreckage has been located.

With far more questions than answers, everything falls into the category of speculation, though the accident - without definitive clues has the potential to reopen long standing debates about fly-by-wire controls, airliner lightning strike protection, ADIRUs and ETOPS even after millions of hours of safe in-service operation of these technologies.

Flight's Operations/Safety Editor David Learmount captured the event this way:

An event like this is the kind the aviation world hoped it would not see again, because it involves a world class carrier flying the latest generation of airliner, and it occurred en route, not during take-off or landing in difficult weather. It's a chilling reminder that nothing is impossible, however unthinkable.