SerpApi.Org
Airbus is moving closer to a decision on launching a new aircraft model that would be among the biggest passenger jets ever made and place Boeing’s long-delayed 777X directly in its crosshairs.
The European plane maker has been weighing whether to lengthen the body of its existing A350, allowing airlines to carry more passengers, according to Tufan Erginbilgic, chief executive of Rolls-Royce, the exclusive supplier of engines for the airframe. A decision on whether to proceed could come within the next 12 months, which would enable first delivery in the early 2030s, he said.
A move would bring Airbus back into the market for the world’s biggest passenger planes, a segment it abandoned after it discontinued its A380 double-decker in 2019. The superjumbo’s demise left the runway clear for Boeing’s coming 777X, which can seat as many as 450 passengers.
An Airbus spokeswoman said the plane maker hadn’t decided on whether to move forward with a new version of its wide-body, often dubbed the A350-2000, but confirmed it was exploring options to expand its A350 lineup.
“Market demand for large wide-bodies is real, and we’re looking at potential evolutions of the A350 to meet that demand,” she said.
Boeing’s 777X, an upgraded version of its popular 777, has been plagued by production and regulatory challenges that have delayed its entry-into-service by seven years.
The plane’s biggest customer, Dubai’s Emirates, is now expecting its first aircraft around the middle of next year. It had originally expected the plane in 2020, the airline’s president, Tim Clark, said.
Clark delivered a scathing blow against Boeing, suggesting the first ten 777X jets, which have already been built, should be scrapped and turned into cans for baked beans, in comments to the U.K.’s Daily Telegraph.
Clark said Tuesday that the comment was “facetious,” but he stood by the claim that those aircraft wouldn’t be viable as they hadn’t benefited from subsequent small design improvements Boeing has since made for the plane. “Just park them and get them out the way,” Clark said, adding that a colleague has also reminded him that the 777X is made from aluminum, and cans for baked beans from steel.
Airbus has been exploring different options for stretching the A350, including a less ambitious expansion using the plane’s existing XWB-84 engines, or a longer version that would use a new variant of that engine with more thrust and a wider diameter, Rolls-Royce’s Erginbilgic told reporters at the U.K.’s Farnborough International Airshow.
“I don’t think they have made a decision yet, but we are working with them,” he said, adding that it would take about six to seven years to develop the engine and airframe.
He deferred questions to his counterpart at Airbus, Gullaume Faury, but said his understanding was they were moving toward developing the bigger model, which would bring it in the firing line of Boeing’s biggest 777X variant, the 777-9.
Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg, who took over at the helm of the U.S. plane maker in 2024, has been pushing to stabilize the American company’s finances after multiple crises. That effort has included securing regulatory approval for the 777X and two new versions of the 737 MAX from the Federal Aviation Administration, so it can start delivering those aircraft to customers.
Ortberg last year unveiled a nearly $5 billion charge to cover delays and other setbacks in the 777X program. He said at the time that the accounting loss reflected how much longer it would take to clinch certification, pushing to the future revenue that investors had hoped would roll in sooner.
The CEO on Sunday said the company is still on track to deliver its first 777-9 next year, but noted that versions of the wide-bodies it had manufactured years ago would need more work than those that had rolled off the assembly line more recently.
Ortberg said Boeing is using a “side shop,” a factory where retrofit work for those older 777 airframes could be done without interrupting production of new jets. The company had previously used so-called shadow factories for touch-up work on its bestselling 737 and 787 models until it closed down the last of those lines in 2025.
“We’ll be doing the modifications of the airplanes that are already built,” the Boeing CEO said. “That’ll be over the next couple years. It’s not a short process to get that done.”
Emirates’s Clark, whose airline’s backlog represents more than half of the 777X’s total orders, said Tuesday that the worst appeared to be behind Boeing. He praised Ortberg and head of Boeing’s commercial aircraft division, Stephanie Pope, for their progress in “gradually getting this company back onto its feet.”
He said his skepticism around the delayed wide-body, and his comments about the first 10 aircraft, were remnants of the pre-Ortberg era.
Clark, who was also the biggest buyer of Airbus’s A380, said he had been pushing the plane maker to proceed with a stretched version of the A350.
Write to Benjamin Katz at [email protected] and Drew FitzGerald at [email protected]