The coronavirus pandemic against the backdrop of the general economic downturn dealt a crushing blow to air traffic, and by the aircraft manufacturers themselves. World leaders in this area - Boeing and Airbus - began to wind down their most ambitious projects..
American Aircraft Corporation puts an end to its illustrious Boeing airliner 747 Jumbo Jet. It was the world's first double-deck four-engine passenger aircraft, calculated on 500-800 seats, depending on the modification. Appearing in the seventies of the last century, the airliner made a real breakthrough and for more than thirty years had no analogues in the market. Despite the high price of the aircraft, they were sold more than one and a half thousand. In Europe, they could not look at it indifferently, therefore 2005 year, the direct and only competitor of "Jumbo" rose into the sky, Airbus А380. In various versions, the aircraft could take on board from 525 to 853 passengers. Airbus managed to produce 242 liner of this type. And now, as it appears, these competing winged giants will have to sink into oblivion. And there are several reasons..At first, the long-haul airline market has already had enough. There are more than enough produced aircraft on it. Plans to reduce the program of giant airliners Boeing and Airbus hatched for a long time. Secondly, did his dirty work COVID-19. Pandemic collapses passenger air travel sector, drastically reducing company revenues. It is estimated, what is available on the market 27 thousand planes really will be used no more 20 thousand, the rest will just have to stand idle, bringing losses instead of profits. Now carriers began to massively refuse to purchase new airliners, and it’s easier to maintain the health of existing ones due to “cannibalization”, that is, disassembling for flightless parts. It is assumed, that the recovery in demand for passenger aircraft will happen through 5-7 years. However, in these realities, giants like Boeing 747 and the Airbus A380 is simply no place. New liners are no longer needed, will repair old, "Devouring" others. The current trend is liners with a capacity of 250 to 400 human, like Boeing 777 и Airbus A350, as well as medium-haul liners. In the future, this opens up some opportunities for our country., It is worth mentioning about the CR929 wide-body passenger liner being developed jointly with China with a capacity of 250 to 300 seats. In some ways, you can even consider it a plus, that the plane has not yet been made, start scheduled for 2026 year. Around that time, the start of a recovery in market demand is expected.. The same can be said about the medium-range airliner MS-21. American sanctions against suppliers of composite materials for its wings also pushed to the right the planned production. The launch of the series is expected in 2025 year. The aircraft will be equipped with a choice of Pratt engines&Whitney or Russian PD-14. By that time, imported composites should be replaced by domestic analogues. It is supposed to create two modifications of the MS-21: with index 300, on 160 – 211 passenger seats, and 200, on 130 – 176 A timely entry to a growing market will allow these two aircraft to occupy their own niche in it..
Author: Sergey Marzhetsky
