A380F Readies as Airbus, Boeing Sharpen Battle Axes

THE NEXT BIG THING

Airbus is putting the finishing touches on its A380F freighter design in anticipation of a first flight next year.

But even before major components come together, one thing is clear: The aircraft will feature even more heavily in the perpetual Airbus-Boeing sparing match than its A380-800 passenger cousin.

The A380-800F is an integral element of Airbus's A380 strategy, in large part because the beefed-up structure opens the door to future derivatives. Charles Champion, Airbus COO and manager of the A380 program, notes the freighter will most probably be very similar to the so-called A380-900, a stretched, nearly 80-meter-long passenger aircraft that would nominally seat 650. Detailed design work on the -900 hasn't been done and a program launch is still years away.

A successful freighter program also is important to the company because the A380 is the first project where Airbus has launched cargo and passenger versions of an aircraft at the same time.

Additionally, there are economic incentives for Airbus to want to see the A380F trounce Boeing's cargo offerings, including the latest element in that product line, the 747-8F. The margins on freighter aircraft are generally higher than for passenger models, so success with the freighter could help Airbus at a time its higher-margin wide-body business is lagging compared with that of narrowbodies.