Airbus Integrated Company -- AIC -- came into being earlier this month with a dowry from the old four-company consortium of 55% of 1999's new orders, and a delivery schedule of more than four years, or 49% of the market's backlog.

The new company will start work under single global management in September/October, and as a result expects by 2004 to be making annual savings of $330 million, AIC's chief financial officer Andreas Sperl.

With EADS now possessing 80% (to BAE Systems' 20%) of the shareholding, and 100% control, AIC considers it will have gained full transparency in processes, structures and costs for the first time, and that this will be a valuable negotiating asset.

With eight or nine airlines expressing serious interest in the A3XX, and potential launch orders for more than 50 of the giant airliners, AIC has budgeted for start-up engineering and development costs of $10.7 billion.

It puts AIC's A3XX family into the lucrative 400+ seat market, where it sees strong growth and a requirement for 1,500 aircraft-including 300 freighters-over the next 20 years (Boeing would dispute those projections).

AIC says airlines' interest in the aircraft is extensive, with at least 20 contributing to design concepts and applications. AIC expects final definition to be completed by the end of next year, first flight in 2004, certification of the A3XX-100 in mid-2005, and service entry around October of that year.

So what about those questions of airport handling? "We have talked to airports, but it is more useful for the airlines to do that, Sperl says. "There is one important measurement for airports-80-by-80-and the A3XX will comply with that."

Will there be a change of name for the airplane? "Certainly not at this time," he says, "since it is now well known as the A3XX."

By Steve Morris