January 18, 2005, 10:21 Business

Airbus has developed gigantomania

Irina Mokrousova On Tuesday, the European aircraft manufacturing giant Airbus will solemnly show the world its new brainchild - the super-capacity A380 aircraft. Russian airlines will not be able to buy it: there is nothing and there is no need.

The Russian office of Airbus told Gazeta.Ru that the ceremony to show the public the largest aircraft in the world, the A380, will take place in the assembly shop of the Jean-Luc Lagardère production complex in Toulouse, the headquarters of the European aviation giant.

About 4.5 thousand guests will be among the first to see the supercar, including representatives of customer companies, as well as people without whom Airbus could not have built it: French President Jacques Chirac , German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder , British and Spanish Prime Ministers Tony Blair and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.

The governments of their countries subsidized this development by Airbus, which is why they almost had a fight with the US President. Of the nearly $11 billion spent on the development, certification and mass production of the A380, about $3 billion was provided by the European Union as an interest-free loan.

George Bush believes that the American concern Boeing failed to maintain its position as the leader in the global aircraft industry precisely because of the active and unlawful support of Airbus from the European Union.

American Boeing and Airbus, which began as a consortium of French, German, British and Spanish aircraft companies and is now owned by pan-European aerospace corporation EADS and British BAe Systems, have long competed in the civil and military aviation markets.

In 1992, Boeing controlled 80% of global commercial aircraft sales, but in 2003, Airbus overtook Boeing in the number of aircraft sold for the first time (305 and 281 aircraft, respectively).

Airbus deliveries exceeded Boeing deliveries in 2004 (320 and 285 aircraft, respectively), thus accounting for 53% of global aircraft sales, and the company's turnover exceeded €20 billion. In 2005, the Europeans plan to sell 360 aircraft, and the Americans only plan to catch up Airbus figures for 2004.

Boeing hopes to stop Airbus by achieving, with the help of its government, the abolition of the aviation industry subsidy system and through sales of its supercar, the B7E7 Dreamliner. It will be able to transport 200–250 passengers over a distance of about 16 thousand km. Its closest competitor, the Airbus A-330-200, with a capacity of 253 people, can cover only 12 thousand km.

This is the difference between the strategies of Airbus and Boeing: the first relied on super-capacity, and the second on super-range.

EADS co-CEO Rainer Hertrich says the A380 project will break even once 250 of the brand's aircraft are sold, which should happen sometime in 2012. Customers for more than half of the number of aircraft required to pay off the project have already been found.

Airbus senior director Andreas Kramer told Gazeta.Ru that the A380 order book already amounts to 140 aircraft.

But it is unlikely that any of the Russian carriers will buy such an aircraft in the near future.

According to Troika Dialog analyst Sergei Donskoy, the A380 is too expensive for domestic airlines (list price: $250 million - Gazeta.Ru ), and taking into account customs duties, its cost will increase by about 40%.

“In a few years, the aircraft will already be used, and, accordingly, cheaper and more accessible to our airlines,” Donskoy believes.

And the head of the analytical department of the Prospekt investment company, Natalya Odintsova , says that the purchase of such machines is possible only with the assistance of the state, which must create working leasing schemes. In her opinion, the A380 could be of interest to airlines that are actively seeking to enter the international market and operate flights to the USA and Asia: Aeroflot, Transaero and Siberia.

But the head of the Aeroflot aircraft fleet planning and development service, Sergei Koltovich , believes that the aircraft will not be sold in Russia not because of the high price.

“This is a good plane. But our market is too small for it: in Russia there are no such passenger flows for which it would be advisable to buy an A380. In addition, the infrastructure of Russian airports is not suitable for such aircraft. In our country, even the IL-96 cannot land everywhere. So it’s unlikely that we can talk about this for the next ten years,” Koltovich said.

In the next twenty years, the world demand for airliners capable of carrying more than 400 passengers is 1.5 thousand aircraft. EADS management believes that half of this number will be their vehicles, capable of carrying 555 passengers. Based on the A380's list price of $250 million, Airbus could earn about $180 billion from sales of the A380 alone over this period of time.