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The First Emb-145 50 Seat Regional Airliner Is Due to Make Its First Flight During the Course of This Issue. The Prototype Is Pictured During Final Assembly After Wing Mating. The Much Delayed Emb-145 Is Embraer's Most Ambitious Aircraft Project to Date, and a 13 Month Certification Programme Should See the First Production Examples Delivered to Flight West Mid Next Year. (Embraer)
Newsdesk – Commercial Aviation
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Airbus Doubts ‘Super Jumbo’
Airbus Industrie chief Jean Pierson has cast doubts on the validity of a future ‘Super Jumbo’ airliner with 600 plus seats, saying the market is not large enough to support such an aircraft. His comments come shortly after the release of Airbus’ latest market forecast (refer Newsdesk last issue) which includes a prediction that more than 800 airliners in that category will be sold to the year 2014. Pierson says that so far only two operators – British Airways and Singapore Airlines – have expressed any enthusiasm for an aircraft of that size and that one or two airlines would be insufficient to sustain a market for such an aircraft with its massive development costs. Pierson says the market could be satisfied with existing aircraft such as the Boeing 747 and Airbus A340. The manufacturers have long suggested that there is room for only one very high capacity airliner. If Airbus decides not to pursue the market, the door is open for Boeing to dominate it if it goes ahead with a larger capacity 747-500.
China Plans For Expansion
Aware that its domestic airline market is potentially one of the biggest in the world, China is planning to add 320 more aircraft to its airline fleet from 1996 to the turn of the century so it can carry 80 million passengers annually, or twice that carried in 1994. The new aircraft will increase the total Chinese fleet to 1000 passenger jets and 48 alone were added in the first half of 1994. An 18 month moratorium on additional aircraft purchases was then imposed in an attempt to slow things down in order to build more infrastructure and improve safety and training. Chinese airlines carried 40 million passengers in 1994, an 18% increase over the previous year. Growth is expected to slow to 12% this year, meaning an estimated 46 million passengers will be carried. China is also planning a major restructuring of its airspace with the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) intending to take control of it from the military. It is believed that the heavily utilised Beijing/Guangzhou/Shenzhen route will be the first to be placed under civil control, followed by others over the next three years.
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