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Gulf Air pits Boeing 787 vs Airbus A350

COLOGNE — Bahrain-based airline Gulf Air is pitting Boeing’s fuel- and cost-efficient 787 against rival Airbus’s planned competitor, the A350, as it negotiates with the world’s largest aircraft makers to replace its fleet.

Gulf Air wants to replace its 34 Boeing 767s and Airbus A320s, A330s and A340s with two plane types — a wide-body aircraft for long-haul routes and a narrow-body one for shorter distances. Airbus is 80-per cent owned by EADS, with the balance held by BAE Systems Plc.

The regional carrier would like to switch to a combination of Boeing 787s and 737s or Airbus A350s and A320s to reduce maintenance, spare-part and pilot training costs, airline Chief Executive James Hogan told Reuters yesterday.

“We are prepared to go all-Boeing or all-Airbus,” Hogan said on the sidelines of a tourism conference in Cologne. “At our size it makes sense to be one fleet.”

Hogan plans to decide on the replacement fleet and seek board approval this year, and he said financing was in place. He declined to give a cost-saving target.

“We have got the financing,” he said. “We have got the (10 per cent) pre-delivery payments committed by the banks.”

Which plane maker he chooses would depend on the best price and other aspects of the deal, including terms for the disposal of the current fleet. Gulf Air could still opt for a mixture of Boeing and Airbus aircraft, he said.

The fleet, which is maintained by the Gulf Aircraft Maintenance Company (GAMCO), will be replaced between 2008 and 2010, Hogan said.

Boeing plans to start deliveries of its 787 Dreamliner in 2008. Airbus hopes to begin delivering its response to the 787 — the A350 — from 2010, and expects board approval for the plane’s industrial launch in the coming weeks.

Hogan said Gulf Air planned to remain a regional carrier, focused on the South Asian, Middle Eastern and North African markets, adding that it would not be a customer for Airbus’s A380 super-jumbo.

Gulf Air is the national carrier of Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and Oman and carried 7.48 million passengers in 2004.