Airbus and Boeing battle in Asia for widebody jet market dominance

As jet fuel continues to become more expensive, the Airbus planes will be more and more costly to operate, relative to the similar sized aircraft from Boeing.

The graphic is nice because it shiws a good overview of te competitive landscape of the widebody aircraft market. It is a bit out if date, as it doesn't show the breakdown of the three 777-X variants. The graphic also illustrates the huge gap in Airbus' lineup. They lack any aircraft or plans for any aircraft to carry more than 350 passengers except for the gigantic 4-engined A380.

That leaves a huge gap that is way wider than the capacity range of all A350 and A330 aircraft currently available or planned.

Almost suggests that Airbus is working on another aircraft (let's call it the A360) to help fill in that gap and do what the A380 has never done and likel will never do. That is, to sell lots of planes that carry lots of passengers. The need for efficiency will likely mean that this needs to be a 2-engined aircraft. A380 can carry many passengers, but with 4 engines they'll never sell many of them.

A newer more successful model would need to carry fewer passengers with fewer engines than the A380. It would need to compete in the 777-X and 747 passenger capacity range and do so efficiently.

That plane, if ever planned or built, would sell at much greater numbers than the A380. The A380 seems like an albatross that will be creating weakness for Airbus at the top of the widebody market for years to come.