Carriers Keen on New Airbus Jet Still Hankering for Boeing Rival
Carriers Keen on New Airbus Jet Still Hankering for Boeing Rival
(Bloomberg) -- JetBlue Airways Corp. and Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA, regarded as likely buyers for Airbus SE’s proposed A321 XLR jetliner, urged Boeing Co. to go ahead with a rival model that they say will have capabilities the European plane can’t match.
The discount carriers said in Paris on Friday that the anticipated launch of the extra long-range version of Airbus’s A321neo at the Paris Air Show next week won’t damp their interest in a potential plane Boeing is looking at developing, called the new mid-market airplane or NMA. Both airlines are interested in deploying the jets on routes between Europe and the U.S.
Boeing is delaying any commitment to the NMA -- dubbed the 797 by some industry observers -- while it studies the ramifications of the grounding of its best-selling 737 Max model. The narrow-body workhorse, idled following two crashes in five months, competes with Airbus’s A320 family of planes, of which the XLR would be the biggest, longest-range version.
“I think it’s a great idea, I think it’s a gap in the market and I think Boeing should get on and start doing it,” JetBlue Chief Executive Officer Robin Hayes said of the NMA in an interview at the Paris Air Forum, adding that the U.S. jet would offer a range advantage “that isn’t compensated by other airplanes.”
At the same time, Hayes said his company has looked at the XLR and “been a big advocate to persuade Airbus to build the airplane.” JetBlue said it could use the model to fly about 600 miles further than the LR model it has on order depending on the make-up of the cabin and number of passengers on board. Some LR commitments could be converted to the XLR, he said.
Bjorn Kjos, Hayes’s counterpart at Norwegian Air, speaking at the same Paris event, described the NMA as an “interesting aircraft” that could tap routes with an eight- to 10-hour flight time not well served by current offerings, though any purchase decision would be “dependent on the price.”
He said the XLR as planned is “a beautiful plane,” but presents issues for carriers operating from slot-constrained airports “because of the need for bigger aircraft.” It may therefore be best-suited to airlines with a large portfolio of slots, he said.
Norwegian primarily used the larger Boeing 787 for long-haul operations at locations such as London Gatwick, one of the world’s busiest single-runway hubs, though Kjos said the XLR would be a good fit for routes such as Scandinavia to India.
Boeing envisages the NMA as a replacement for its defunct 757 and for the 767, which is currently in production only as a freighter. The plane would slot in below the 787 and compete with Airbus’s A330neo, though by building the XLR the Toulouse, France-based company could limit the market for the U.S. plane and make it a more marginal proposition.
To contact the reporters on this story: Tara Patel in Paris at tpatel2@bloomberg.net;Benjamin Katz in London at bkatz38@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Anthony Palazzo at apalazzo@bloomberg.net, Christopher Jasper, Brendan Case
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