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New airplane expected to enter service in 10-15 years

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Would be successor to top-selling A320neo family

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New plane expected to be 20%-30% more efficient

By Tim Hepher

TOULOUSE, France, March 25 (Reuters) - Airbus

on Tuesday gave a glimpse of technologies for its next airplane,

a replacement for its best-selling A320neo family due to enter

service between 10 and 15 years from now.

The question of when to replace the industry's top-selling

model, which competes with Boeing's ( BA ) 737 MAX in the

busiest part of the market, is one of the key decisions for

Guillaume Faury as he enters a third three-year term as CEO next

month.

Airbus said the new airplane would be 20-30% more efficient

than the current A320neo family. In the U.S., NASA has said it

is working on a rival configuration with Boeing ( BA ) that could

reduce fuel consumption and therefore emissions by up to 30%.

Airbus is, however, keeping investors and competitors

guessing over the scope and timing of any new project.

On Monday, Faury said the plane would be evolutionary rather

than revolutionary, though Airbus has warmed to a potential

open-fan engine studied by CFM that he described

as more revolutionary than its alternatives.

On Tuesday, the company's top development officials adopted

a less cautious tone at an event to promote Airbus efforts to

act as a catalyst for decarbonisation.

"We want to do this major gap (with the current model) which

is not incremental, which is not optimisation," said Bruno

Fichefeux, head of future programmes at the world's largest

planemaker.

"We need to make sure that these technologies come to

maturity and that we can bet our design on them, and we are not

there yet," he told the Airbus Summit.

"Our target ... would be to introduce an aircraft in the

second half of the next decade."

Analysts said the emphasis on ground-breaking technology

suggests that Airbus is in no immediate hurry to launch a new

development, with rival Boeing ( BA ) hamstrung by financial problems

and important wing and engine developments still taking shape.

Faury said last year Airbus would launch a new plane towards

the end of the current decade. Most analysts estimate it would

need around seven years after that to bring it to the market.

In its largest single research project, Airbus said it was

making progress towards designing a light folding wing dubbed

Wing of Tomorrow and studying new composite materials.

Airbus confirmed that it was looking at a drastic increase

in production to 100 of the new airplanes a month, almost double

current production.

Reuters reported on Monday that Airbus and Boeing ( BA ) were both

separately pushing composite suppliers to be ready for sharp

increases in output to 100 planes a month each for the next jet,

as they make more use of plastic materials and robotic assembly.

Airbus said it continues to explore a possible hydrogen

fuel-cell-based aircraft for the regional market after delaying

development by five to 10 years from an original target of 2035.