A319neos have been ordered – by Avianca
(28), Frontier Airlines (18) and undisclosed
customers (12).
Airbus has also sold two ACJ319neo
Corporate Jets, with up to ve additional centre
fuel tanks in the hold to enable the aircraft to
carry eight passengers 7,770 miles (12,500km).
The customers are Alpha Star of Saudi Arabia
and K5 Aviation of Germany, in association
with 28 East. Both ‘green’ airframes will be
delivered in the second quarter of 2019.
Unveiled at the annual European Business
Aviation Convention and Exhibition at
Geneva in Switzerland on May 19, 2015, the
ACJ320neo promises a 16% improvement
in fuel burn over the ACJ320, and its two
additional fuel tanks mounted in the cargo hold
will give it a range of 6,905 miles (11,113km)
carrying 25 passengers.
Launch customer Acropolis Aviation of
Farnborough, Hampshire, will take delivery
of a ‘green’ airframe in the fourth quarter of
2018 for installation of a 19-passenger interior.
Service entry is expected in early 2020.
Meanwhile an order for three from Comlux,
powered by LEAP-1As, was announced on
February 1. The rst will be delivered to the
Comlux completion centre in Indianapolis,
Indiana, in 2018.
Airbus is already looking at improvements
to the A320neo Family as part of its project to
keep the aircraft attractive to airlines. Planning
for an A320neo incremental development
programme began in mid-2015. It is due to be
introduced in 2017, building on work previously
started for the interim A320neo Plus cabin and
ight deck upgrade.A 5% improvement in fuel efficiency is
expected to be available by 2020 – 2% of
the gure coming from re nements to the
PW1100G series powerplants.
The growth of the A320neo’s order book
has been spectacular. Launched in December
2010, by the end of 2015 Airbus held 3,357
rm commitments for the type (including 30
added to end of year totals on February 16 “as
a result of ful lment of conditions precedent
occurring in January 2016”, according to the
company). By the end of the rst quarter
of 2016 the gure had decreased slightly to
3,342, of which ve had been delivered.
The backlog includes some staggeringly
large commitments, eight customers having
ordered more than 100. IndiGo’s order for 430
is worth more than $46bn at today’s list prices,
while the second-highest rm commitment is
for 304 for AirAsia.
As well as lessors AerCap (151) and
SMBC Aviation Capital (110), airline customers
ordering 100 or more are Norwegian (100),
easyJet (130), Lion Air of Indonesia (118)
and Avianca of Latin America (101) – and
Fabrice Brégier jokes that the dominance of
the A320neo Family over its competitors is
“temporary for just the next 30 years”.
Although the future will tell if he is correct,
the timing of the launch of the A320neo was
extremely good. High fuel prices made a
‘double-digit’ saving attractive, helping persuade
airlines to sign for new aircraft and creating a
massive backlog for both the A320neo Family
and, when it was launched around a year later,
arch rival Boeing’s 737 MAX.
Five years later, the price of a barrel ofoil has fallen considerably, resulting in fewer
new orders and some trimmed commitments
(hence the net decrease of 15 in the rst
quarter of this year).
Another factor that affects the size of the
A320neo order book is the demand to carry
additional passengers – the market has shifted
towards larger aircraft with lower per seat/mile
costs, and therefore better margins. The trend
has fuelled orders for the larger A321neo,
which amounted to 1,108 at the end of March
after ve years on the market – two-thirds of
the orders chalked up by the A321ceo since its
November 1989 launch.
At the smaller end, only 60 A319neos had
been ordered by March 31. If this pattern
continues it’s conceivable that some A320neo
commitments will be replaced with those for
A321neos.
In 2011 Christopher Buckley, Airbus’
Executive Vice President, Africa, Europe and
Asia Paci c, spoke about “a nice problem to
have” – how the company was going to deliver
the large numbers of A320ceo/neo Family
airliners ordered. In late 2012 production of the
single-aisle family rose from 42 a month from
the three nal assembly lines (at Hamburg,
Toulouse and Tianjin), growing to 44 in the
rst quarter of 2016 when the fourth facility at
Mobile, Alabama, came on line.
The rate is currently growing to 46 each
month – 24 emerging from Hamburg, 16
Toulouse, four from Tianjin and two from
Mobile – and will rise by four more in the rst
quarter of 2017.
But even production of 50 airliners a month
will not be enough to meet the current backlog,
and Airbus will create an additional production
line at Hamburg as part of its plan to produce
60 a month by mid-2019.
Few aircraft enter service without teething
problems, especially today’s software
dependent airliners. Early operations by
Lufthansa revealed multiple error messages,
requiring software updates; within the rst
month most of these had been overcome.
Pratt & Whitney’s efforts to bring the PW1127G
up to speci cation continue, but should be
achieved before the year ends. As additional
examples of the new engine option enter
service, it will become easier to judge if Airbus
has met its target of a 15% improvement in
operating costs over the A320ceo. If it does,
then the A320neo may become the most
widely produced narrowbody of all time.http://www.aviation-news.co.uk 59By the end of March the A321neo had amassed 1,108 orders. AirbusDr Kiran Rao, Airbus EVP Marketing and Strategy (left) and Captain Ashim Mittra, IndiGo
VP – Flight Operations, at the handover of IndiGo’s initial A320neo. The carrier is the second
operator of the A320neo. Airbus – master fi lms/P Masclet56-59_a320DC.mf.indd 59 06/05/2016 14:47