Rival airplane makers Boeing and Airbus traded jabs yesterday over jets that have never even flown, highlighting sharp differences over whether the future of commercial aviation lies in superjumbos or smaller models that can fly faster.
Airbus is set to roll out it massive double-decker A380 in 2006 and boasted that last year the huge plane had already outsold Boeing's jumbo 747, the biggest jetliner in the skies for several decades, by almost 9-1.
"They had the flagship of the 20th century. We believe we have the flagship of the 21st century," said John Leahy, chief commercial officer at Airbus.
Questioning the idea that bigger airplanes are better, Boeing executive Randy Tinseth said the average size of jets in key markets has been shrinking as airlines offer more flights at different times to better accommodate passengers. Tinseth touted Boeing's planned 7E7 "Dreamliner" -- a smaller jet that can fly faster with greater fuel efficiency.
Speaking to an aviation forum here, the two giants of global airplane manufacturing were gearing up their sales pitches for the Asian Aerospace 2004 air show next week in Singapore. Such events frequently turn into colorful debates between US-based Boeing and Europe's Airbus.
Tinseth, Boeing's director of product and services marketing, said airlines could fly three of the 7E7s, carrying more people and using less fuel, than one of the big Airbus models between Hong Kong and Singapore, a top regional business route.
Leahy countered that the smaller Boeings would have to fly "wingtip to wingtip" to get that many passengers in the air during peak travel times, and added that crew costs, maintenance costs and other expenses would be higher.
Airbus projected that passenger traffic will soar in coming decades and Leahy said "we're not going to do that in little airplanes."
Leahy said that Boeing's 7E7 appeared to be a copycat version of the medium-sized Airbus A330, with a slide show that superimposed diagrams of one jet on the other, making them look quite similar. Airbus said Boeing was "reinventing the A330."
Boeing says its airplane, which does not yet have an initial customer, will be more passenger friendly after being manufactured with revolutionary new techniques. The company has said the 7E7 probably won't enter the market before 2008.
Earlier, a leading industry official based in China charged that airlines are being gouged on fuel prices there, which he said were 30 percent higher than they are in neighboring countries -- although officials have never provided a satisfactory explanation.
"The Chinese carriers sometimes have to fly to Japan, Singapore, to fill up their planes," said Zhang Baojian, a regional director of the International Air Transport Association. "They have to reduce the payload to carry the fuel back to China."
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) on Wednesday said that a new chip manufacturing technology called “A16” is to enter production in the second half of 2026, setting up a showdown with longtime rival Intel over who can make the fastest chips. TSMC, the world’s biggest contract manufacturer of advanced computing chips and a key supplier to Nvidia and Apple, announced the news at a conference in Santa Clara, California, where TSMC executives said that makers of artificial intelligence (AI) chips will likely be the first adopters of the technology rather than a smartphone maker. Analysts said that the technologies announced on
NO RECIPROCITY: Taipei has called for cross-strait group travel to resume fully, but Beijing is only allowing people from its Fujian Province to travel to Matsu, the MAC said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday criticized an announcement by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism that it would lift a travel ban to Taiwan only for residents of China’s Fujian Province, saying that the policy does not meet the principles of reciprocity and openness. Chinese Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Rao Quan (饒權) yesterday morning told a delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers in a meeting in Beijing that the ministry would first allow Fujian residents to visit Lienchiang County (Matsu), adding that they would be able to travel to Taiwan proper directly once express ferry
CALL FOR DIALOGUE: The president-elect urged Beijing to engage with Taiwan’s ‘democratically elected and legitimate government’ to promote peace President-elect William Lai (賴清德) yesterday named the new heads of security and cross-strait affairs to take office after his inauguration on May 20, including National Security Council (NSC) Secretary-General Wellington Koo (顧立雄) to be the new defense minister and former Taichung mayor Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) as minister of foreign affairs. While Koo is to head the Ministry of National Defense and presidential aide Lin is to take over as minister of foreign affairs, Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) would be retained as the nation’s intelligence chief, continuing to serve as director-general of the National Security Bureau, Lai told a news conference in Taipei. Koo,
MANAGING DIFFERENCES: In a meeting days after the US president signed a massive foreign aid bill, Antony Blinken raised concerns with the Chinese president about Taiwan US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and senior Chinese officials, stressing the importance of “responsibly managing” the differences between the US and China as the two sides butt heads over a number of contentious bilateral, regional and global issues, including Taiwan and the South China Sea. Talks between the two sides have increased over the past few months, even as differences have grown. Blinken said he raised concerns with Xi about Taiwan and the South China Sea, along with China’s support for Russia and its invasion of Ukraine, as well as other issues