A318-A319-A320-A321

Airbus annonce un petit lifting de ses moyen-courriers au Salon de Dubaï

DUBAI — L'avionneur européen Airbus a annoncé dimanche au Salon aéronautique de Dubaï l'installation d'ailettes verticales à l'extrémité des ailes de sa famille de moyen-courriers A320, baptisés "Sharklets", qui devraient permettre de faire des économies de consommation de kérosène.
Proposés en option sur les avions en production, les "Sharklets" entraîneront une réduction de la consommation de carburant d'au moins 3,5% sur les lignes les plus longues, ainsi qu'une réduction annuelle d'émissions de CO2 de quelque 700 tonnes par appareil, a indiqué le directeur commercial d'Airbus, John Leahy, lors d'une conférence de presse.
L'A320, qui sera le premier appareil équipé de "Sharklets", sera livré vers la fin 2012, suivi des autres monocouloirs Airbus, à compter de 2013. Air New Zealand est le client de lancement des "Sharklets" qui équiperont sa future flotte d'A320.

BREAKING: Airbus selects winglets for A320 family
By Jon Ostrower on November 15, 2009

DUBAI -- Airbus will offer fuel-saving winglets on its A320 family aircraft beginning in 2012.

The specially designed 'sharklets' will provide a 3.5% fuel burn savings on routes longer than 1500 nm. Air New Zealand will launch the new sharklets at the end of 2012 as part of its recent order for A320 aircraft. Airbus says the A321 and A319 will follow in 2013. Airbus has not yet decided if it will offer the winglet on the A318.

Airbus claims the winglets will offer a boost of 110 nm in range or a payload increase of 500 kg or about 2 passengers.

The winglets will not be offered as a retrofit, but Airbus says it is working with Aviation Partners to provide a simpler design on existing A320 aircraft.

Dubai 09: A320’s sharklets to deliver 3.5% lower fuel burn from 2012
By Max Kingsley-Jones

A winglet-equipped version of the Airbus A320 will enter service in late 2012, delivering fuel burn improvements of up to 3.5%. Launch customer is Air New Zealand.

Airbus's chief operating officer customers John Leahy says that the airframer had decided to adopt its own "sharklet" design after a series of winglet flight-test evaluations in recent years.

"The sharklet can give you another 150nm [278km] range or 500kg [1,100lb] more payload," he says.

Offered only on new-build aircraft, the sharklet has a $900,000 list price per shipset. Leahy says that a retrofit for in-service aircraft is being examined in conjunction with Aviation Partners (API), which worked with Airbus on the new-build winglet programme.


Airbus tested its own winglet design several years ago before the more recent trials of an API version. Leahy says that the sharklet design is all-new and has already been evaluated using computational fluid dynamics analysis. "It will be scaled from the A350's sharklet.

"We'll do the final computer work in 2010, manufacture in 2011 and flight test in 2012. Service entry on the A320 will be in late 2012."

The upgrade will follow on the A321 and A319 six and 12 months later. An offering on the A318 is still being looked at.

Leahy says that the 2.4m (7.8ft)-high sharklets will be "weight neutral" as the required wingbox strengthening, which adds 200kg, will be offset by the ongoing airframe weight-saving effort.

The 3.5% fuel burn improvement is achieved on flights greater than 2,800km. The winglets also boost take-off and climb performance and provide significant gains in payload/range from hot/high airfields, says Leahy.

Air New Zealand, which recently ordered 14 International Aero Engines V2500-powered A320s, confirms that it has become launch customer for the sharklet.

"The new sharklets will enable our Airbus fleet to benefit from lower fuel burn and carbon emissions, both across Air New Zealand's domestic network and especially on the longer trans-Tasman sectors," says chief executive Rob Fyfe.

After looking at several options, Airbus opted for an in-house design it is calling "sharklets."
Boeing has long offered winglets on the 737. Airbus officials have said for some time that they had more work to do because the A320 wing already was more efficient. And, in announcing the upgrade, John Leahy, COO for customers at Airbus, dissed the rival's product as "old technology" winglets.

What's still unclear is how retrofits will be handled. Leahy acknowledges that the sharklets will not work, so other design options are being looked at.

Airbus sees lifespan of at least 10 years for re-engined A320

By Max Kingsley-Jones

Airbus is confident that if it goes ahead with its proposed A320
re-engining, the updated model would have a production lifespan of at
least 10 years. The airframer has also urged International
Aero Engines and its partner Pratt & Whitney to devise a way of
offering the latter's PW1000G geared turbofan through the consortium,
as an alternative to the CFM International Leap-X advanced turbofan. John
Leahy, who is Airbus's chief operating officer customers, says that the
proposed new A320 could be in service by 2015 and that any all-new
single-aisle aircraft is unlikely to arrive before 2024-25. "With
re-engined aircraft there is usually an overlap of a few years with the
new aircraft - this is what Boeing did with the 737NG - so it will have
a life of at least 10 years." Meanwhile, chief executive Tom Enders says Airbus will "take a decision on the
re-engining this year". Speaking during its annual press conference in
Seville, Enders added that the airframer will also decide "what the
engine solutions will be". The Leap-X advanced turbofan and
the PW1000G are being evaluated, and Enders repeated Airbus's previous
statement that it wants an offer from its existing A320 supplier IAE. Leahy
stresses that Airbus is not interested in a sole-source deal with
P&W for the GTF, and urges the US engine maker to get together with
its IAE partners - which include Rolls-Royce - to "work out a way for
IAE to offer the GTF". Although the airframer wants "multiple
suppliers" for the new engines, Leahy does not rule out signing a deal
later this year first with CFM "if Pratt and IAE aren't ready".

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2010/01/14/337136/airbus-sees-lifespan-of-at-least-10-years-for-re-engined.html

Autre signe de la reprise : Airbus envisage de relever une nouvelle fois les cadences de production de son monocouloir vedette pour répondre à la demande de ses clients. « Nous réfléchissons désormais à relever les cadences de production de l’A320 de 36 à 38 appareils par mois », a indiqué hier son directeur commercial John Leavy à Broughton, le site d’Airbus au Royaume-Uni en charge de la fabrication des ailes. En mars dernier, l’avionneur avait déjà annoncé son intention de passer de 34 à 36 appareils par mois pour la fin de l’année

Plus de 50 millions de vols pour la famille A320.

Airbus, une filiale du groupe EADS, annonce
aujourd'hui que la famille A320 compte à son actif plus de 50 millions
de vols depuis la mise en service en 1988 de son tout premier appareil,
l'A320.

Depuis cette date, les appareils de la famille A320 ont
transporté plus de cinq milliards de passagers, ajoute l'avionneur
européen, dans son communiqué.

' L'un de nos monocouloirs décolle
toutes les six secondes quelque part dans le monde ', a commenté John
Leahy, le directeur opérationnel ' client ' d'Airbus.

Avant de poursuivre: ' nous investissons plus de 100 millions d'euros par an dans
la famille A320, afin qu'elle demeure la famille d'avions la plus
moderne, dotée de la consommation de carburant la plus faible au monde'.

Pour mémoire, la famille monocouloirs A320 comprend l'A318, l'A319, l'A320 et l'A321.
http://www.boursorama.com/infos/actualites/detail_actu_societes.phtml?num=e41136225c54541cb56d85b90f423fa4