Airbus stands firm on A350

PARIS — Airbus Chief Louis Gallois said Friday he will resist pressure from his largest customer to revamp yet again plans for the company's crucial and already much revised new plane, the A350.

"We are not (going) to change the design of this airplane a new time," Gallois said. "We know what airplane we want to build and we will build it."

Striving to dispel uncertainty surrounding the airplane that will compete with Boeing's 787 Dreamliner, Gallois hinted that orders to be announced during the show at Le Bourget airfield will validate Airbus' plans.

The A350 is scheduled to debut five years after Boeing's strong-selling 787 Dreamliner.

The A350 "will be a great airplane," he said, "and the answer of the market is extremely good."

Gallois said he'll try to win over at the show one significant market player who still needs convincing: Steve Udvar-Hazy, chief executive of International Lease Finance Corp (ILFC), the world's largest aircraft-leasing company.

Both the Dreamliner and the A350 will have an exterior made of composite plastic. But while the Dreamliner has entire fuselage sections built as a single composite piece, the A350 is now designed as an aluminum framework with a skin of composite panels.

Hazy criticized Airbus' approach to the A350 in an interview at a conference in Vancouver, B.C., earlier this month.

"We're OK with it as long as the skeleton structure is primarily composite," Hazy said. "We're looking for a composite frame on which to put the composite panels."

The Airbus chief said Friday he'll have a crucial behind-the-scenes meeting to change Hazy's mind.

"Steve Hazy is the most important purchaser of airplanes in the world. I respect his opinion," Gallois said, "I will try to convince him that we have made the right choice."

Airbus has already made one major revamp of the A350, announcing at last year's Farnborough Air Show in London that it was changing the fuselage from the traditional aluminum to one made with large composite plastic panels.

Friday, Gallois described the design as "prudent, economic, efficient."

An aluminum frame creates technical engineering complications because as the temperature changes the metal expands or contracts much more than the carbon-based composite, creating pressures where the two materials join.

On Friday, Gallois said Airbus' design will be a match for Boeing's 787 innovative construction of the 787 fuselage in massive, tubelike, all-composite sections.

"I'm sure we have as good engineers as other companies," Gallois said. "I have good arguments to give to" Hazy.

Gallois made his remarks at the opening of an all-day media seminar run by Airbus parent company European Aeronautic Defence and Space (EADS).

When he returned in the afternoon to close the seminar, he said that in the car on the way over he'd read a report in Le Monde newspaper quoting Boeing Chief Jim McNerney as saying the A350 design specification is not yet solid.

Gallois did not conceal his irritation.

"I prefer to talk about my product," he said, "I don't like when my competitor is talking about my product."

"What Jim McNerney said is wrong," Gallois said. "It's completely unfair to say that."

Despite statements to the contrary from ILFC's Hazy in Vancouver 11 days ago, Gallois insisted Airbus is giving customers detailed specifications and adequate performance guarantees on the A350.

He said he will set the record straight publicly at the Airbus news conference at Le Bourget Tuesday.

Dominic Gates: 206-464-2963 or dgates@seattletimes.com