At a well attended briefing in London Airbus sales chief John Leahy forecasted a need for 22,700 new airliners by 2025, worth about USD$2.6 trillion. He noted a requirement for 1,700 very large ”planes - nearly double the figure suggested by rival Boeing. Leahy said that Heathrow would become the world”s busiest A380 airport with 85 daily departures by 2015. ”British Airways needs to become a customer,” he said. Only last week, however, BA chief Willie Walsh, whilst not ruling out the A380, made it quite clear that that the airline would not consider the A380 until it was well into service with other carriers.
Leahy was in fine form but in no mood to praise Toulouse and its production efforts. Again and again he noted the delays to the A380 and refused to answer questions on the A350 and its XWB development. ”That is a question for the EADS board.” Likewise on the amount of compensation being offered for the late A380 deliveries, except to say that they were capped. Government aid and industrial questions were outside his province. Yes he had lost the FedEx 10 aircraft order but it had been compensated by the Qantas and Singapore increases. "All the others are staying with us," he told the news conference.
Mr Leahy noted that Airbus would drop below Boeing as regards orders this year. In monetary terms commitments are running at 63/37 in Boeing”s favour.
Mr Leahy said that China and India are huge growth markets, and pointed out that the United States (at more than 6,600 planes needed by 2025) is by far the largest market by aircraft numbers.