Airbus’ and Boeing’s Payload/Range for Single Aisle

By Bjorn Fehrm

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Introduction

Aug. 13 2015, ©. Leeham Co: Boeing this month changed the way it presents its aircraft in important areas like seating, weight and performance configurations, in short its “rule set.” After using a standardized but old rule set for 20 years, it updated all data around how far its aircraft can transport a standardized payload.

Airbus at the same time is also changing how it presents its aircraft. Right now the dual aisle wide bodies are going from a two class to a three class cabin in its rule set. While Boeing is leaving three class for two class, Airbus is going in the other direction.

Why these movements and are there any common themes in these conflicting changes?

We go behind the scenes to decipher the changes and decode what it all means when one want to compare Boeing and Airbus products. We start with the single aisle aircraft this week.

Summary:

  • Airbus and Boeing had rather small differences in their rules and how they characterized single aisle aircraft up until this month.
  • From now on Boeing is using higher average passenger+bags loads and have added additional equipment to the aircraft’s empty weight specification.
  • We show what these changes mean for the aircraft’s performance. We also use our model to show Airbus single aisle aircraft's range should they use the same rules as Boeing’s aircraft.

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