Airbus is closing in on a cherished Boeing position — having the most single-aisle planes in the sky — a fact that is increasing pressure on Boeing to launch a replacement for the no-longer-built 757.
As of Feb. 10, Boeing could boast only 165 more 737s in service than Airbus’ A320 series, as Airbus pulls ahead in orders and more of the older version of the Boeing planes are put in storage, according to information supplied by Flightglobal’s Ascend Online database.
Take out Boeing’s “combi” and QC (quick change) models, which largely serve as freighters, and Boeing’s lead drops even lower, to 97.
This is a razor-thin margin, just 0.87 percent of the 11,145 narrow body aircraft from the two competitors.
Airbus’ A321neo, the largest of the company’s re-engined A320 models, has proven especially competitive against Boeing’s 737-9 Max, capturing about 75 percent of orders. This is largely because airlines are using the A321neo to replace aging 757s, because the Airbus model is slightly larger than the 737.
“The 737-9 is clearly a plane that does not match up to A321neo,” said Scott Hamilton, president of Leeham LLC, a Seattle-area aerospace consultancy. “The 737 is an airplane that has to be replaced. The (re-engined) Max takes it about as far as it can go, and some would argue, further than it should have.”
The 757 combined a lengthened fuselage of the same diameter as the 737, with more efficient wings and engines, to produce a medium-range aircraft carrying about 200 people that proved very efficient and that continues to be used extensively on domestic and transatlantic routes.
The 757s were one of the company’s most popular aircraft, occupying a niche that Airbus never matched. When Boeing stopped building 757s in 2004, the company had manufactured 1,050.
“The 757, it was an overpowered airplane — it had fabulous short-field, high-, and hot-field performance,” Hamilton said referring to difficult take-off situations from high-altitude or high-temperature airports. “It was a high-capacity airplane in its day. Once you put winglets on it, it could do 4,000-mile transatlantic routes, long thin routes, for which a larger plane was not economical.”
The two companies' order books also show Airbus leading with a backlog of 4,265 A320s, compared to Boeing’s back orders of 3,662 in the 737 series, setting the former on a path to pull ahead of Boeing in aircraft in service possibly this year or next.
“They will cross it pretty soon. Airbus right now has a 60 to 64 percent market share of neo versus Max, and Boeing has to work hard to catch up,” Hamilton said. “Airbus has a broader customer base than the Max does.”
All this suggests that Boeing may move its chess pieces first, to launch a 757 replacement in order to leapfrog Airbus’ strong A321neo sales.
Boeing hinted at its thinking at the Singapore Air Show this week.
“There may be a marketplace...in an airplane that doesn’t have the range capability of a 787, but in the size category of 200 to 300 seats,”Boeing Commercial Aircraft sales director John Wojick was quoted as saying in news reports.
A Boeing spokesman declined to comment further Tuesday.
Hamilton, along with other observers, believes a new model is inevitable.
“My information is that Boeing is going to launch a 757 replacement about 2018, for EIS (entry into service) about 2024 or '25,” he said. “737 replacement would flow from 757 replacement about two years later.”
If this proves true, one thing this means is just four years from now, a decade before the Machinists’ newly approved contract expires, Boeing may be again considering where to build a new airplane.
The cramped Renton facility would seem an unlikely place, given that production of the 737 series is to be a record 47 monthly by then.
Other options would be to build the 757 replacement aircraft, with a high percentage of carbon composites in the airframe, either at a brand-new site or at space opened up at the Everett plant, possibly by the 747’s demise.
While Hamilton and others believe Boeing might do well to follow Airbus' lead and further diversify its manufacturing, partly as a hedge against a Puget Sound-area natural disaster like an earthquake, he believes Boeing probably will use the situation as a lever to further squeeze labor.
“We’re going to go through the economic and labor blackmail that they went though with the 777X,” Hamilton said. “Boeing will run competition with all the sites again, employees will have to step up and make concessions to keep the work here, it will be a rerun.”