Airbus, Boeing to dominate market for 10 years

Airbus and Boeing will still dominate the market for large passenger aircraft 10 years from now despite the ambitions of Russia and China in this area, an Airbus executive said on Thursday.

Fabrice Bregier, Chief Operating Officer for the company, suggested delays reported by Boeing for its new airliner, the 787, showed the complexity of the business and the difficulty of manufacturing such complex products.

The delays to the Boeing 787 "shows that in 10 years Boeing and Airbus, who are in a fierce fight together, will remain very obviously the two biggest players in the world," he told French radio station BFM.

"There are projects in Russia and China," he said, but "the entry price to develop planes like the (Airbus-made) A350 and the A380 is enormous and we'll not be seeing a new entrant at a global level overnight."

The China Aviation Industry Corporation, Russia's Sukhoi and Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries are all developing small to medium-sized aircraft. Canada's Bombardier and Brazil's Embraer have carved out a niche for themselves for small, business jets. (AFP)