PLANEMAKERS Airbus and Boeing are sweating this summer over whether to upgrade their best-selling aircraft with new, more efficient engines, a move which could reshape the $80bn jetliner industry.
Billions of dollars in profits and trade balances are at stake as they act to fend off emerging competition from Canada, China and Russia.
Behind them, the world's leading narrow-body engine makers – Britain’s Rolls-Royce, US groups General Electric and Pratt & Whitney, and France’s Safran – battle for supremacy over the next wave of technology. With aviation staging a fragile recovery from recession, big planemakers are under pressure to provide savings in fuel.
But each must do so without damaging the resale value of jets already in the market, as control of the industry steadily passes to the financiers running the leasing industry.
