Why Did Airbus Build the A330NEO?

in 2014 Airbus introduced the world to a sorta brand-new wide-body jet it was their a330 neo a revamped version of the company's legacy a330 it sported new engines new winglets and not much else yet Airbus had positioned this jet to compete with Boeing's all-new 787 which debuted three years earlier however being built on an airframe from the 90s the a330 neo has no real shot of matching the 787's efficiency so why did Airbus decide to build it let me explain [Music] the story of the a330 neo actually begins with its bigger brother the a350 back when Boeing decided to launch their mid-sized ultra-long range 787 in 2004 Airbus was pressured by Airlines to respond with a jet of their own what they brought to potential customers was sort of a Frankenstein's monster Airbus took the a330 s fuselage and gave it new wings and engines this first pass at creating the a350 which really just looked more like a revamped a330 than an all-new jet was heavily criticized by two of the largest aircraft lessers on earth G casts and ILFC at risk of losing their business Airbus scrapped this first design and launched a larger carbon composite jet meant to compete with the Boeing triple7 this shift towards building a larger jet left the 787 completely unchallenged and this was a big problem for Airbus even in the face of production delays the 787 was selling like crazy by the time 2014 rolled around leaves 787 had accumulated a backlog of almost 1,000 aircraft this meant that if you wanted to place a 787 order in 2014 you'd have to wait about six years before receiving your new planes and while Airbus was certainly not happy with Boeing selling so many 787's it did present the company with a new sales opportunity while fleet modernization programs are usually planned years in advance not all airlines can afford to wait upwards of six years before receiving new jets airlines were now incentivized to purchase a less efficient re engine a330 in a way that they worked back when Airbus scrapped the a350s original design let's also remember that because of their initial design approach for the a350 Airbus had for all intents and purposes already sunk two years into the a330 Neos development this ultimately reduced the development time of this new jet and combine this with the fact that the neo uses many of the same components and the same supply network as legacy a330s the cost of the Neo program amounted to just two billion dollars comparatively the 787 program cost thirty two billion dollars to develop herein lies the primary reason Airbus decided to build the a330 neo while it could never match the 787 on efficiency it could beat it on costs now if we look at the list price of the seven eight seven - nine and the a330 900 neo they cost almost exactly the same but in the world of commercial aviation no customer pays list price since the a330 Neos program costs were so low Airbus is able to offer deeper discounts than Boeing can and still turn a profit and for many airlines if they can pay a lower upfront cost for the jet it is more than enough to justify the long-term losses in efficiency now as of this video's publishing boeing has sold almost 1500 787's however if we just look at 2014 onwards the year Airbus launched the a330 neo Boeing has sold just 393 787's comparatively airbus has sold 248 a330 Neos and while this still lags the 787 over the same time period there's no doubt that its existence has helped to stem the Dreamliner's spectacular growth and considering the program has cost so little to get off the ground this is an absolute win if you learn something new today leave a like and subscribe to keep learning and until I see you again don't forget to look up

Channel: Coby Explanes

Views: 382,538

Keywords: a330neo, Airbus a330neo, 787, Boeing 787, a330, Airbus a330, a330 vs 787, a330neo vs 787, Boeing, Airbus, TAP a330neo

Id: mPnKAKrSsOg

Length: 4min 50sec (290 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 06 2019