Choice Of Mclr Engine To Hinge On Service Factor

This suggestion was made by the committee after going through the presentations of all the three competing aircraft manufacturers Airbus, Boeing and McDonnell Douglas.

The panel has not favoured any particular company on the engine-related orders.

The committee has also decided to co-opt an official from the office of the comptroller & auditor general.

Industry experts say the present set of recommendations was one of the several benchmarks being worked out by the panel to arrive at a final decision.

Airbus, in its presentation, had stated that their aircraft and engines would save Air India upto $ 20-25 million.

Air India's existing `test cells' are a perfect match to Airbus' A 340 engines and there is no need to erect new test cells, the presentation said.

In contrast, the Boeing 777 is powered by twin-engines which are much larger.

The counter-argument is that Air India would have to dish out a higher maintenance cost for the four-engined A 340 than the two-engined B 777 as the burn out will be more for the former.

Both Airbus and Boeing have recently been engaged in a mud-slinging match against each other's aircraft dynamics which can ultimately land up in a court of law.

Sources say this dogfight will, in no way, help the cause of the two companies as the Air India board will take a final decision only after weighing a lot of factors like the financial flexibility of the deal and the techno-economic committee report.

The contentious issues relate to seat capacity, operating costs and basic engineering differences and both companies have taken extreme pains to present their case.

While Airbus underplays Boeing's 30 extra seats as unwanted, Boeing is using the same 30 seats as one of its main unique selling propositions which would generate at least $ 4,500 extra revenue per trip for Air India.

Marketshare of both the contenders is another issue which has caught the fancy of many. While Airbus maintains that it is the market leader with 322 firm orders from 41 customers, Boeing has used statistics on the same parameter differently.

According to a presentation made by Boeing India president Dinesh Keskar, his company has the fastest-growing marketshare today.