Just 1,400 days after Airbus disclosed – to a Farnborough air show audience – its intention to re-engine its popular A330 family, the first customer aircraft carried out its maiden flight from Toulouse. Its original 42-month development schedule had always been ambitious, but the A330neo nevertheless appears set for service entry just four years after launch, compared with five for the A320neo.
TAP Portugal is scheduled to take belated delivery of the first A330neo during the summer, but Airbus is initially using TAP's aircraft to round off the certification campaign, carrying out tests of the cabin interior – the "Airspace" layout originally developed for the A350. The Portuguese carrier is taking 14 A330-900s including 10 on direct order from Airbus. Two of them were rolled out in the carrier's livery at the beginning of March. Introduction of its first aircraft, MSN1819, into the development fleet – followed by its maiden flight on 15 May – marked the final stages of the A330-900 flight-test programme, which commenced on 19 October last year.
Flight tests began in October 2017 and -900 variant development remains on schedule
S Ramadier/Airbus
The -900 is the primary variant of the Rolls-Royce Trent 7000-powered twinjet, although Airbus is also intending this year to begin flight tests with the shrunk -800 version. Two initial A330-900 airframes – MSN1795 followed by MSN1813 – were allocated to the main flight-test work, the former set to conduct 600h of airborne assessment with a further 500h scheduled for the other. TAP's contribution to the development fleet is fitted with light instrumentation to perform ATA21 testing of the air conditioning and cabin ventilation systems.
Airbus will put the A330-900 into service at a critical point in the evolution of the A330 programme, which – against expectations – had survived the threat posed by Boeing's development of the 787. More than 500 A330s have been ordered since late 2011, when the 787 entered service with Japan's All Nippon Airways. These orders include 214 for the A330neo. But indications that the A330 market was weakening emerged in 2015-16 when Airbus substantially slowed the monthly production rate to six aircraft.
Although it had subsequently considered lifting the rate, demand for the A330 has declined rapidly, falling from 140 net orders in 2015, and 83 in 2016, to just 21 last year. The A330 backlog stood at exactly 300 aircraft at the end of April, down by more than 40 aircraft on the level a year earlier.
"Airspace" economy-class cabin is being tested in final stages of certification campaign
Airbus
Airbus has intensified its focus on A330neo sales, having previously been preoccupied with securing sufficient orders for its current A330s in order to maintain a solid production bridge as it transitions to the re-engined aircraft. "We're going to sell lots of them," head of A330neo marketing Crawford Hamilton insisted confidently during a recent briefing on the programme.
But the airframer's faith in future demand for the A330neo has yet to be rewarded. It ended the first third of the year with a net deficit of A330 orders, having agreed a sale for just a single aircraft during the four months to the end of April.
Airbus is trimming its production rate on the line to around four or five aircraft per month next year, but chief financial officer Harald Wilhelm remains upbeat, claiming that the A330neo had "good prospects" as the manufacturer released its first-quarter results – although he alluded to the possibility of cutting prices in order to ensure that the twinjet could compete effectively.
Wilhelm indicated that Airbus would draw on its experience with shaving fixed costs from the A380 programme – which has also been suffering from a reduction in production rates – and apply them to the A330 line, as part of a strategy to protect margins for the aircraft. Several "interesting campaigns" are under way for which Airbus is pitching the A330neo, he says, and he believes that the airframer has a good chance of converting sales. Wilhelm reasons that the aircraft's appeal lies in its low capital cost and its demonstrated efficiency. Hamilton echoes this view, stating that the A330neo has a "very comparable" fuel-burn to the rival 787.
But the list price for the A330neo, at $296 million, is $14 million higher than that for the 787-9. Airbus is also aware that the A330-900 has a shorter range than the 787-9.
Boeing puts the range of its 787-9 at 7,630nm (14,100km), while that for the 242t A330-900 is 6,550nm. But Airbus is aiming to enhance the range by lifting the maximum take-off weight of the A330neo to 251t – a hike which will extend the -900's range to some 7,200nm, an envelope which, Airbus argues, will allow the aircraft to address much of the 787-9's market. The 251t variant will enter service in 2020.
Airbus expects the A330-900 to be the primary version of the A330 to be delivered over the course of 2019. Each aircraft delivered, however, will chip at a backlog which – purely in terms of aircraft numbers – has remained unchanged since the end of 2016.
While the -900 backlog has risen slightly, the increase has been offset by a complete wipeout of orders for the smaller -800 variant, the result of the collapse of customer TransAsia Airways and the decision by Hawaiian Airlines to switch to the 787-9. Airbus is banking on an upcoming replacement cycle to lift the A330neo's order figures, when the aircraft's ability to compete against the appeal of the 787 will be tested.
The airframer had delivered 741 A330-300s and 623 A330-200s as passenger aircraft by the end of April. First deliveries of the -200 began two decades ago, while -300s had already been in service for four years before that, and Airbus is intending the transition to A330neo production to coincide with the emerging demand to renew these older aircraft.
TAP, the first recipient of the A330-900, is an operator of 20-year-old A330-200s while other carriers, including Brussels Airlines and Cathay Dragon, have -300s which are around 25 years of age.
Flight testing of the A330-800 – with MSN1888 – is set to commence this year as part of the strategy to prepare for the -200 replacement wave, which Hamilton expects to arrive in "three or four years". He says that by 2020 around 100 A330s will be 20 years old or more. But he adds that the airframer is also looking to pitch the A330neo at the replacement market for similarly-aged Boeing 767-300ERs, arguing that a number of 767s were not replaced by their supposed successor.
Airbus has yet to revive the A330-800 orderbook but is highlighting the 8,150nm range over which the 251t version of this variant will be able to operate. The airframer is intending to promote it as an aircraft for the transpacific market. Hamilton believes the A330neo will be able to serve as a "complement" to the A321neo, a long-range version of which is also set for certification and service entry this year. "They work very well together," he adds.
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Source: FlightGlobal.com
