Airbus is not in a hurry to replace its A320 family,

reports Air & Cosmos. “These aircraft grow old well and our customers operate them longer than planned”, points out Alain Flourens, A320 programme manager. Besides, orders for the aircraft family have exploded since the end of 2004, from 1,029 units to deliver to 2,512 at the end of 2007. The order book is full through 2012. In this light, Airbus does not plan a successor until 2017-2020 and rather focuses on bringing slight progressive improvements to the existing models. John Leahy, Airbus’s chief commercial offer, recently pointed out that “a new mid-haul aircraft family would only make sense if it brought to airlines a major breakthrough in terms of fuel consumption, ecological records and operating costs ”. Yet, the new technologies required to achieve these goals “will not be ready until the middle of the next decade”. The trade magazine reports that the future mid-haul family should use carbon-fibre airframes and new engines. In addition, Airbus’s engineers are also working on its capacity range, which could start from 80 seats, thus directly challenging Bombardier and Embraer.
Air & Cosmos