=20 http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/201773_air01.html With Airbus looking to spoil Boeing's 7E7 coming-out party by offering airlines the long-range A350, the European jet maker has rethought its long-haul jetliner ad campaign. The old Airbus ads for its long-haul planes didn't sit well with many in the industry. They suggested that four-engine planes are safer than twins if you are flying very long distances over water. But now Airbus is considering a significant range boost for its twin-engine plane that will take on the new twin-engine jet from Boeing. The proposed Airbus A350-800, a derivative of the A330-200, would be able to carry around 250 passengers up to 8,600 miles. That's still about 1,000 miles short of the 7E7's projected range. But by any measure, the A350-800 would be a long-haul plane, capable of making such flights as London to Los Angeles. Even the current A330-200, with a range of about 7,700 miles, is hauling passengers daily on some pretty long flights over vast stretches of ocean. Northwest Airlines operates the A330-200 on non-stop flights to Tokyo from Seattle, Portland and San Francisco. "Those Airbus ads were an embarrassment from the word go," said Richard Aboulafia, senior aerospace analyst with the Teal Group, an industry consulting firm near Washington, D.C. "You should never use the issue of safety as a competitive advantage," he said. "It's a dumb place to go." Chet Ekstrand, vice president of regulatory affairs for The Boeing Co., has watched this debate play out for some time. Given the range that Airbus is proposing for the A350, he said, and what Northwest is already doing with its A330-200s over the Pacific, "Airbus' opportunity to use those kinds of ads is very limited going forward."=20 Ekstrand is the company's point man on issues such as the 18-year-old regulations that govern extended range twin-engine operations, or ETOPS. These are any twin-engine commercial flights during which the jet is at least 60 minutes away from the nearest alternative airport should it have to divert because of an engine shutdown or other emergency. Twin-engine jets such as Boeing's 777 can fly routes that take it up to 180 minutes from an alternative airport under current extended range twin-engine regulations. On a case by case basis, this can be extended to 207 minutes. Boeing has backed, and Airbus has opposed, a pending Federal Aviation Administration rule change that would essentially benefit twin-engine planes on extended range twin-engine flights. Airbus argues the proposed rule would impose hardships for airlines that operate four-engine jets. After two years of study and hearings, a final rule from the FAA is expected early next year. The 777 has the lowest diversion, or turn-back rate, of any widebody jet, including the Airbus A340, according to Ekstrand. Many thought Airbus crossed the line in 1999 with an ad that showed its four-engine A340 flying over storm-tossed waters. The ad was clearly a shot aimed at the twin-engine 777. "It's always reassuring to have the redundancy option of four engines rather than two. Especially when you are a long, long way from home," read the text of the Airbus ad. Three years later, at the Farnborough Air Show outside London, one of the industry's biggest events, Airbus unveiled a $5 million ad campaign that once again suggested four engines were safer than two for long-haul flights. Air show visitors only had to look across the Farnborough runway to see a 300-foot long banner that proclaimed "The Airbus A340. 4 engines 4 the long haul." Engine makers and others blasted the Airbus ads. In the past year, Boeing has mounted an aggressive ad campaign, on television and in print, touting its super-efficient 7E7, which is set to enter service in 2008. There are not yet Airbus ads touting the A350. Later this month, EADS, the European aerospace giant that owns 80 percent of Airbus, is expected to give Airbus the go-ahead to begin offering the A350 to potential customers. If the program is subsequently launched, the A350 could be flying about a year after the 7E7. Airbus first told aerospace journalists in September that it was looking to develop two versions of the A350. That's still the plan. In addition to the 250-passenger A350-800, the second model, the 300-passenger A350-900, would be a derivative of the A330-300. It would have less range than the A350-800 but still fly about 1,000 miles farther than the A330-300. Since entering service in 1998, five years after the A330-300, the longer-range A330-200 has won the bulk of orders in what's known as the middle of the market, where Boeing 767 once dominated. For the A350 derivatives, Airbus wants to design new wings and add new fuel-efficient engines being developed for the 7E7. More lightweight composites would be used. Boeing's 7E7 will be the industry's first jetliner with a nearly all-composite airframe. It's hardly coincidence that Airbus decided to call its possible new derivatives the A350-800 and A350-900.=20 Boeing's base plane is the 7E7-8. Coming later will be the stretch 7E7-9 to carry more passengers. A short-range 7E7-3 will be developed in parallel with the 7E7-8. Aboulafia, the industry analyst, said he is not convinced Airbus will go ahead with the A350. "It's possible the A350 won't happen," he said.=20 "Airbus has probably spent far less time, so far, planning for the A350 than Boeing spent on its sonic cruiser, he said. Boeing dropped plans in 2002 for the fast and sleek sonic cruiser in favor of the more fuel-efficient 7E7. "All Airbus wants to do at this point is confuse the customer," he said. "They want to disrupt the business case for the 7E7." Boeing said earlier this year that market response to the 7E7 was so strong that it expected to win 200 firm orders by the end of 2004. It has only 52 so far. Although it also has another 30 or so commitments, Boeing still needs nearly 150 firm orders to make its target. "Either Boeing will get 150 more high quality 7E7 orders, or the A350 will have done its job, real or not," Aboulafia said.=20 Meanwhile, Airbus just started a new ad campaign about long-haul travel. Print ads show an ancient map of the world with various routes flown by Airbus long-haul planes, including the A380 super jumbo that begins service in 2006 "Airbus. We're in for the long haul," the ad says of Airbus jets that can "travel the world" and fly the "seven seas." One of the planes in the ad is an A330. Two engines, it would seem, really are as good as four, regardless of which side of the Atlantic you are building jetliners on. =20