Lufthansa bumps out Qatar Airways for first Airbus A320neo
German carrier Lufthansa -- and not Qatar Airways -- will be the launch customer for Airbus’ new A320neo jet.
The move is a surprising last-minute switch. For more than a year, both Airbus and Qatar Airways had been touting Qatar Airways as the first airline to take delivery of the new aircraft. Lufthansa and Airbus now say that the German carrier is likely to take delivery of the jet by the end of the month, making it the first airline in the world to take possession of a A320neo.
"We came to a mutual understanding that Lufthansa will be the first airline to start the delivery stream," Airbus said in a statement to Dow Jones Business News. "Thus we confirm Lufthansa will become the A320neo launch customer this year."
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News of a shake-up in the delivery order was first reported last week by the trade-industry magazine Aviation Week, which said the Doha-based airline had developed concerns over the aircraft’s Pratt & Whitney engines. Qatar Airways offered no comment, but the company said recently that it still anticipated receiving its first A320neo before the end of the year.
That the launch customers for the jet would change so close to delivery is unusual. Aircraft manufacturers typically announce launch customers for new jets well in advance for the plane's first delivery. In the case of the A320neo, Airbus had announced back in 2014 that Qatar Airways would be the aircraft's first operator.
Airbus has been promising first A320neo delivery in 2015 for some time, and the company says it will still do so even as the year nears its end. Dates for such matters tend to be quite fluid. However, Lufthansa has suggested that delivery could take place around the 22nd of the month.
The A320neo -- neo is short for "new-engine-option" -- is an upgraded version of Airbus’ successful A320-family line of narrow-body, single-aisle jets. Sporting new engines, enhanced winglets, and other improvements, Airbus says the jet could be 15% more efficient than current generation A320-family models.
Both Lufthansa and Qatar Airways have substantial orders for the jet on the books, at 101 and 50, respectively. Airbus has logged over 4,300 orders for the airplanes to date.
The backlog, which does not include additional orders for the current generation of A320 jets, has prompted Airbus to say it will boost production of the airplanes to 60 per month in 2019. That would be a substantial increase from the current 42.
The jet is in hot competition with Boeing’s 737 MAX, which itself is a similarly upgraded narrow-body, single-aisle aircraft. Airbus and Boeing have been locked in a battle for single-aisle market share ever since the A320 hit the skies for the first time in the late 1980s.
Boeing’s jet, however, is roughly one year behind the A320neo. The first 737 MAX rolled out of a Boeing factory in Renton, Wash., last week. It is expected to make its first flight in early 2016 and first delivery in 2017.
Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren is a Seattle-based photojournalist and aviation writer and a contributor to Ben Mutzabaugh's Today in the Sky blog. You also can follow Jeremy on Twitter at @photoJDL.
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