Airbus seeks Chinese mainland market edge
(Shenzhen Daily )
Updated: 2004-10-21 12:58

Airbus China president Laurence Barron said sales of the aircraft to China Eastern, on top of orders for six aircraft to Air China, had already put Airbus sales in China this year above last year's.

"As of today, this is our best year ever in China, Hong Kong and Macao, and we still have two and a half months to go," said Barron. "Who knows what can happen in that time?”

Last year, Airbus clinched orders for 30 aircraft in China, Hong Kong and Macao, he said. So far this year, including 21 A321 aircraft signed for China Southern Airlines Co. in January, six A319 planes to Air China as well as three A330s for Hong Kong's de facto flag carrier Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd., Airbus has chalked up orders for 50 aircraft.

But that still puts Airbus behind Boeing, which entered the Chinese mainland market about a decade before the European aircraft maker's first foray into the country in 1985.

Barron said Airbus had 25 percent of the current fleet in service on the mainland, while Boeing had 72 percent. In Hong Kong and Macao, it has the dominant share at 62 percent compared with Boeing’s 38 percent. In all, Airbus has 830 in-service aircraft on the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Macao — which works out to a third of the market against its U.S. competitor's two-thirds.

"We have been playing catch-up to Boeing, but in the last 10 years, we've made a lot of progress. Our target is for Airbus to have half the in-service fleet in China in the coming years," Barron said.

Barron has reason to be optimistic. Airbus believes that the region — the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Macao — will need more than 1,500 new aircraft in the next 20 years.

"China will become the second-largest market for civil aircraft after the United States in the next 20 years," Barron said. "At China's current economic growth rates, that could even happen in the next 10 years."

Barron said the aircraft maker forecast 20 percent growth in Chinese mainland air travel this year and next year, then about 8 percent average annual growth thereafter.

"That 8 percent could be a conservative estimate," he said.

One aircraft that could help boost Airbus sales in China is the 555-seater A380, dubbed the superjumbo, which the European aircraft maker has been building and expects to roll out in January next year.

"We're highly confident of seeing the A380 here in China in the colors of at least one Chinese airline, at least by 2008 (the date of the Beijing Olympics)," Barron said. "We expect to say something on this in the coming months."

Airlines such as Air France, Virgin Atlantic Airways, Singapore Airlines Ltd. and Deutsche Lufthansa AG had already struck deals to buy the A380, which should begin flying before the middle of next year, Barron said.

Boeing, meanwhile, has been working on building the 7E7, which will be a mid-sized jet the aircraft maker said would be fuel-efficient rather than large.

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