28 September 2015

Emirates order for A350. The main target of the year for Airbus.

The head of Dubai's Emirates, Tim Clark said 2 years ago concerning the dozens of potential orders for Boeing 777X, or the A350-1000, or both that are on stake: "As Airbus knows, I want to see it on its wheels with its engines running and preferably in the air".






"I am afraid I am not prepared to accept anything until I see telemetry giving performances of the engines and the fuel".


"The A350-1000 is definitely one that we would be looking at. But first of all - show me."




Source: Airbus


Airbus has been able to show A350-900 performance data to Emirates but never of A350-1000 data that it is on the assembly process in the preFALs. On track but still in the assembly process.






Eyes on the Dubai Air Show next November will be watching for what could be would be this year’s prize catch: whether Emirates Airlines will be ready to place the oft-talked about order for 50-70 widebody aircraft: Airbus A350-900s, A350-1000s, Boeing 787-10s or Boeing 777Xs.

Negotiation final phase has started.

Based on the article "Countdown to A350 first flight" published in Reuters.




14 comments:

  1. Airbus will be able to present Cook telemetry in-flight data of the Trent XWB-97 on the A380 flying testbed in October, just before the competition ends. I think this data is what Cook is refering to.
    Boeing/GE will even not be able at all to present any real world data at all regarding the fuel burn of the GE9X and the new wing of the 777-9. So if he wants to have a competition between both airplane makers to lower the price, he will have to, and will of course, accept data coming from numeric simulations of both Boeing and Airbus.

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  2. I mean Tim Clark not Cook of course. ;-)

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  3. Airbus need to listen to this man Clark,the last time,they didn't,wham 70 A350's cancelled. This guy is the biggest buyer for both Boeing and Airbus.He has practically designed the 777-9x and Boeing have let him. They know his real value to them. Boeing will pull out all the stops,discounts,free Aircraft to tie him over- anything to win the big order.
    This mans power lies in the open bank account he has to buy Aircraft and he's pretty shrewd at playing one against the other. Airbus has a helping hand in Akbar Al Baker, he has Clarks ear and is very pleased with the A350-900 thats why Clark has come around. Airbus should listen very carefully to what this man wants and do their utmost to aid him. They have still left him in the air over the A380neo. Airbus should not test this man,he will really hurt you. Right now Clark needs long distance efficient Aircraft. If Airbus offer the A380neo at the Dubai Air Show, then the need for the 777-9x is less,giving the A350-1000 an opening to fill the gap. Personally I think Clark stragtegy revolves around whether the A380neo will be available. If not, I think he will go all Boeing (777-9x plus 787-9)

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  4. "If not, I think he will go all Boeing (777-9x plus 787-9)"
    I think Clark never made a statement in any interview supporting this view.

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  6. You are correct Bjorn, it was a personal view. I will be probably be proved wrong anyway! But he never would,would he? it would give the game away.
    Who knows,its all a guessing game. If Airbus decided to not go down the A380neo route-it would give Clark the perfect opportunity to buy the 777-9x because as it stands right now the A380 is marginal unless full and the 777-9x although only 400 seats(which I suspect is how most A380's fly at the moment) it only has two engines.So in Clark eyes, the A380 needs to be neo to beat the seat/mile costs of the 777-9x

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    1. Hi John,
      from everything I know so far about this competition regarding 50-70 widebody aircrafts the A380 and also the Boeing 777-8 and -9 are not involved.
      Emirates is holding up a competition between Boeing 787-9 and Airbus A350-900 (From everything if have read so far in articles regarding this Emirates order, but I might be wrong). These two planes are considerably smaller than B777-9 and A380. So this time Emirates is not looking for a candidate out of the Very Large Aircraft category.
      It is looking for a much smaller widebody which will serve routes which have not the volume to fill constantly an aircraft of the size of a B777-300ER/A350-1000.

      If you google for the Reuters article you will find that the article as a whole is two years old and therefore all of the comments mentioned above are also two years old and not only the first comment like I thought. (I find it super strange that this blog is posting an article based on two years news material, by the way.) So I think all of Clark’s comments mentioned here are outdated in the meanwhile. Both for the B787-9 and for the A350-900 the real world performance data is now available.

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  7. Hi there,

    I thought it was primarily a competition between the A350-900 and the 787-10 which prompted the engine thrust issues with the 787-10.

    I did not know that the 787-9 was in the game.

    It assumed that those will replace the A330's and 777-200's?

    I also heard that the A350-1000 is back on the table which is very interesting since a larger numbe of 777-X's have already been ordered.

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  8. Hi there,

    I thought it was primarily a competition between the A350-900 and the 787-10 which prompted the engine thrust issues with the 787-10.

    I did not know that the 787-9 was in the game.

    It assumed that those will replace the A330's and 777-200's?

    I also heard that the A350-1000 is back on the table which is very interesting since a larger numbe of 777-X's have already been ordered.

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  9. Hi Joe,
    I also read that it was a competition between A350-900 and B787-10, but my last info on this was that Clark said he has a problem with the 787-10 thrust.

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  10. Your forgetting what their true requirements are..
    A 330 200 replacement. ..
    A small to medium widebody for midrange 4000 nm
    Sectors...
    In my opinion, the a350 is more of a plane than they require. .
    I cannot see them operating both the a 350 1000 and the 777x..
    I wouldn't make any economic sense..

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  11. I totally agree with you Greg.
    I don't know how serious the problem with the 787-10 thrust during the summer is (and if there is really any problem at all or if this is just a way to get a better price.)
    I doubt that it would make economic sense for Boeing and GE respective RR to develop a higher thrust variant of the 787-10 just for 50-70 aircrafts if Clark should really say, if the issue with the thrust is not going to be fixed, Boeing will be out of the competition.

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  12. Well proved how wrong I was! Did not realise this news was so old and that the requirement of Emirates was for smaller Aircraft.

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  13. So I present this. If the -10 is okay for EY and QR, who operate in the same climate, how is it suddenly not ok for EK? I'm of the opinion that EK just wants a better price from Boeing for the 787 variant that they end up buying.

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