Duopoly for wide-body aircraft

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Airbus and Boeing companies form the duopoly for wide-body aircraft . It is the world's largest and best-known duopoly .

history

At the beginning of the era of large aircraft with more than 100 seats in the 1950s, numerous manufacturers existed in many countries around the world. However, the following development and manufacturing phase was characterized by increasingly complex technology, very high development costs, extremely long payback times for investments made and a strongly fluctuating, cyclical market. These and other factors meant that individual manufacturers no longer had the technical and monetary capacity to implement aircraft projects of this size on their own.

After the manufacturer Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation planned the CV-880 and CV-990 to hit the market, the duopoly for long-haul aircraft developed in the 1960s with the Boeing 707 and Douglas DC-8 . Great Britain in particular tried to keep up with the Vickers VC10 , but failed. On the other hand, a larger, but also steadily decreasing number of manufacturers of short-haul aircraft was able to hold out into the 1990s.

These fixed market structures were changed again when the first wide-body aircraft came onto the market at the end of the 1960s . The European governments recognized that their aviation industry could only get into business through a joint project and only with a modern and particularly economical wide-body aircraft. In the USA, Lockheed went back into the passenger aircraft business with the TriStar , but had to stop production of the TriStar in 1983 due to insufficient sales (250 units). In the Soviet Union Ilyushin was able to sell 292 units within 36 years with the Il-62 as the most successful jet airliner of the house. The Il-86 and especially the Il-96 sold significantly worse. Tupolev had more success with 852 Tu-134 (1968–84) and 1026 Tu-154 (1972–2013); the latter, however, sold best in the time of the Soviet Union. In the United States , McDonnell Douglas and Boeing remained two large companies that merged in 1997. In Europe, Airbus established itself among other things because of the fly-by-wire technology. Thus, in the strategically important area of developing and manufacturing large aircraft, two major manufacturers had emerged worldwide.

Airbus civil airliner timeline
Type 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 2020s
route hull drive 0 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 0 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 0 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 0 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 0 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 0 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 0 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9
short / medium Narrow twin-jet A220
medium Large area twin-jet A300
medium / long Large area twin-jet A310
short / medium Narrow twin-jet A318
medium Narrow twin-jet A319
short / medium Narrow twin-jet A320
medium Narrow twin-jet A321
medium / long Large area twin-jet A330
long Large area four-beam A340
long Large area twin-jet A350
long Open plan,
two decks 		four-beam A380 ²


² End of production planned

Timeline of Boeing's civil jet airliners (including McDonnell Douglas )
Boeing
McDonnell Douglas Douglas McDonnell Douglas Boeing
Type 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s
route hull drive 0 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 0 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 0 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 0 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 0 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 0 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9
short / medium Narrow twin-jet DC-9 MD-80 / MD-90 717 (MD-95)
short / medium Narrow twin-jet 757
medium Narrow twin-jet 737 (736, 73G, 738, 739)
short / medium Narrow three-way 727
medium / long Narrow four-beam … DC-8
medium / long Narrow four-beam … 707 (707, 720)
long Large area twin-jet 767 (762, 763, 764)
long Large area twin-jet 787 ("Dreamliner")
long Large area twin-jet 777 (772, 773)
long Large area three-way DC-10 MD-11
long Open plan,
two decks 		four-beam 747 ("Jumbo Jet")


root cause

The economic cause of the duopoly for wide-body aircraft are exceptionally high market entry barriers. The development of a modern wide-body aircraft costs up to ten billion euros and only pays for itself after more than ten years. Such a project will not be financed by private donors if the manufacturer is not already established in the market. It is also questionable whether the market will generate enough demand to finance the development of more aircraft of this size. For long-haul aircraft, a number of 500 is usually given for refinancing; at the same time, these types sell a total of around 1000 times.

Another point is the political importance of aircraft manufacturing. Direct influence of the respective governments occurs again and again and most airlines prefer to order in their own country. The distribution of manufacturers of wide-body aircraft across the world's two largest economies (EU and USA) and that of regional jet manufacturers across the other G8 countries as well as Brazil and China ( BRIC countries ) is corresponding .

Future development

A certain competitive situation with other providers results from so-called regional jets . These are aircraft with a range of around 3000 km and currently a maximum of 130 seats. These aircraft compete in the largest version with the less economical smallest models from Airbus (A318) and Boeing (737-600). A market has formed for such aircraft, currently with the suppliers Embraer (Brazil), Bombardier Aerospace (Canada), Antonow (Ukraine), Sukhoi and Tupolev (both Russia; now combined as OAK - the consortium has with the Ilyushin Il-96 also a long-haul wide-body aircraft on offer). The Japanese company Mitsubishi is also working on such a model.

However, plans for larger aircraft have so far only been very theoretical. The then chairman of EADS , Thomas Enders , said in 2005 that he could imagine that there would be three or four large aircraft manufacturers in 20 to 30 years.

Plans for a competition against the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737, which are built in huge numbers, rarely get by without direct state intervention:

  • The Chinese aircraft manufacturer COMAC is working on the Comac C919 aircraft , which will have a capacity of around 160 people. The aircraft, with its first flight delayed by several years, is in delayed competition with the Airbus A320 family and the Boeing 737 , especially in its home country .
  • The Russian civil aircraft industry has still not been able to recover from its slump. The various Russian aircraft manufacturers merged under the name OAK at the beginning of 2006 after political influence. Here, too, a medium- haul aircraft with up to 174 seats is to be built under the name Irkut MS-21 .

literature

  • Gerald Braunberger: Airbus against Boeing: the giants' economic war . Frankfurt General Book, Frankfurt am Main 2006, ISBN 978-3-89981-116-2 .
  • Jens Flottau: Thin air: Airbus, Boeing and the new challengers , Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-446-42683-2
  • John Newhouse: Boeing versus Airbus: the inside story of the greatest international competition in business . 1st edition. AA Knopf, New York 2007, ISBN 978-1-4000-4336-1 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Klaus Heinemann, Willi Plattes: Aircraft - Advice for professional investments in a real economic good . BoD - Books on Demand, 2012, ISBN 3-8448-2872-9 , ISBN 978-3-8448-2872-6 , p. 43
  2. ↑ Helmut Kreuzer: Jetliner. From the Comet to the Airbus A 321 . Air Gallery Verlag, Ratingen 1991, ISBN 3-9802101-4-6
  3. ^ N. Burgner: The Airbus Story ( Memento from February 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive ). In: Flight Revue . February 2000.
  4. ^ Hans Georg Isenberg and Richard J. Höhn: Civil aircraft, from small aircraft to supersonic jet , Falken Verlag, Niedernhausen Ts. 1980, ISBN 3-8068-4218-3
  5. ↑ Buy and copy: How China is playing with Airbus . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . December 12, 2005.
  6. ↑ Airbus parent defends business in China . ( Memento from September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) In: netzeitung.de . December 7, 2005.
  7. ↑ COMAC C919: First flight at the end of March? , Flugrevue, January 19, 2017
  8. ↑ We made mistakes . In: Welt am Sonntag . May 14, 2006.