Airbus’ and Boeing’s Payload/Range for Dual Aisle.

By Bjorn Fehrm

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Introduction

Aug. 17 2015, ©. Leeham Co: In our series over Boeing’s changes to its configuration rule sets, we will now continue with the dual aisle aircraft. Here the differences between Airbus and Boeing are larger. Boeing used to be specifying a three class cabin and Airbus two class. Now Boeing has changed to two class and Airbus is just changing to three class.

There is a bit of difference in the Airbus change to three class and the three class that Boeing had until now. Airbus changes from modern two class to a modern three class with Business, Premium Economy and Economy. Boeing’s change was from an outdated three class with old style First, Business and Economy to a modern two class with lie flat business section.

The new Boeing two class and historical Airbus two class are close in configuration. These end up within a seat or two of each other and also within our normalized two class cabins. As these cabin rules are similar, we use our normalized cabin data to compare the payload range of the aircraft when all apply the new, tougher passenger+bags weight rules and an equalized reserves policy.

Summary:

  • Airbus’ two class rules and Boeing’s new two class Standard rules are close in their configurations.
  • They are also close to our Normalized rule set. We use our normalized rule set to level the playing field on the cabin side.
  • We can then apply the new tougher passenger and bags rules that Boeing’s Standard rule set prescribes for the twin aisle aircraft and see how they compare.
  • We also use the same reserves policy for the comparison.

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