Summary
There have been thousands more stupid stories written about Airbus than there were episodes of "Here''s Lucy!" (144), but at least the latter were funny.
However, this outwardly dumb idea has some merit despite its "Loony Tunes" provenance (Udvar-Hazy). Interesting too that Bloomberg's aerospace reporting is sharpening up after their Paris Air Show fiascoes.
Analysis
Airbus are not great strategic thinkers. Five ceos in five years, the A380, A350, A340 and and now A400 point to some systematic deep-lying problems.
We all know what they are.
But, according to Airbus, in single-class narrowbody configuration the A321's a 199-seater (at 32in pitch).
Now suppose you resdesign the airframe (easy, of course), to seat 2-3-2 and you suddenly have an A321-size aircraft capable of handling about 239-240 seats (in other words right in amongst the 787-8 market -- 210-250 seats.).
Sure, you have a ton of engineering issues to resolve (ramp weight, turing circle, powerplants etc ) as well as a whole host of other factors common to new aircraft programs but this one has logic and is only the second such I've heard this year -- the first was Saj Ahmad's slightly tongue-in-cheek Dual-Source Tanker story -- brilliant).
Way too late for Airbus to go down that route now as they'd cannibalize A350 sales, but then, they never were the greatest thinkers preferring to concentrate on the next paycheck rather than the next breakthough.
Doug McVitie consults with leading institutions through GLG
Analyses are solely the work of the authors and have not been edited or endorsed by GLG.
