Competition between Airbus and Boeing
The duopoly widebody form the company Airbus and Boeing. It involves the world's largest and best-known duopoly.
History
At the beginning of the era of large aircraft over 100 seats in the 1950s, there were many manufacturers in many countries around the world. The following design and production phase, however, was marked by increasingly complex technology, very high development cost, extremely long reflux times past investments and a strongly fluctuating, cyclical market. These and other factors meant that individual manufacturers no longer possessed the technical and monetary capacity to implement aircraft projects of this magnitude alone.
After the manufacturer Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation, the CV 880 and CV 990 planned over the market, already the duopoly for long-haul aircraft developed in the 1960s with Douglas and Boeing. In particular, the UK tried yet with the Vickers VC10 keep up, but failed. On the other hand were able to match up to the 1990s, a larger but just as steadily decreasing number of manufacturers at short-haul aircraft.
Were again mixed up these solid market structures, came as the late 1960s first widebody aircraft on the market. European governments realized that their aircraft industry was able to get into the business only by a common project and only through a modern and particularly efficient widebody aircraft. In the U.S., Lockheed increased with the TriStar back into the passenger aircraft business one, but had to cease production of the 1983 TriStar again due to low sales numbers (250 pieces). In the Soviet Union was able to sell Ilyushin Il -62 as the most successful jet airliner of the house of 292 units within 36 years. The Il- 86 and Il -96 in particular, sold significantly worse. Tupolev had more success with 852 Tu-134 ( 1968-84 ) and over 1000 Tu -154 (from 1972); but the latter sold the most in the time of the Soviet Union. In the United States remained with McDonnell Douglas and Boeing, two large companies that merged in 1997. In Europe, Airbus prevailed partly because of the fly-by- wire technology. Thus, the strategy politically important area of development and production of large aircraft had been formed two major manufacturers worldwide.
Cause
The economic cause of the duopoly widebody are exceptionally high market entry barriers. The development of modern wide-body aircraft can cost up to ten billion euros. Such a project will not be funded by private donors, if the manufacturer is not already established in the market. It is also questionable whether the market ever has enough demand to fund the development of more aircraft of this size. For long-haul aircraft usually gives a figure of 500 is specified for the refinancing; at the same time, these types sell a total of about 1,000 times.
Another point is the political significance of aircraft manufacturing. Direct influence of the respective governments come again and again and most airlines preferred order in their own country. Correspondingly, the distribution of the manufacturer of wide-bodied aircraft on the two largest economies in the world (EU and U.S.) and the regional jet manufacturer to the other G8 countries as well as Brazil and China ( BRIC countries ).
Future Development
A certain amount of competition with other suppliers is given by so-called regional jets. These are aircraft with a range of about 3,000 miles and is currently a maximum of 130 seats. These aircraft compete in the largest version with little economic smallest models of Airbus ( A318 ) and Boeing ( 737-600 ). For such aircraft, a market has formed, currently with providers Embraer (Brazil), Bombardier Aerospace ( Canada ), Antonov (Ukraine ), Sukhoi and Tupolev (both Russia; meanwhile summarized as OAK - the consortium with the Ilyushin Il -96 also a long-range wide -body aircraft in the offer). Also, the Japanese company Mitsubishi is working on such a model.
Plans for larger aircraft, there has been only very theoretical. The then chairman of EADS, Thomas Enders, stated in 2005 that he could imagine that there were three or four large aircraft manufacturers in 20 to 30 years.
Even plans for a competition against the built in huge numbers of Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 are rarely without direct government intervention of one of the largest economies in the world:
- The Chinese aircraft manufacturer COMAC working on the aircraft Comac C919, which is designed to provide a capacity of about 160 people. The aircraft will go to 2016 in series production and are thus available, especially in the home country, in direct competition with the Airbus A320 family and the Boeing 737.
- The civilian Russian aircraft industry has been unable to recover from their slump as before. The various Russian aircraft manufacturers have teamed up in early 2006 after political influence under the name of OAK. Again, to be built under the name MS- 21 is a medium-range aircraft with up to 174 seats.