Airbus CEO pitches blended‑wing concept
- Airbus chief executive Guillaume Faury said future passenger jets could use a blended-wing body, folding the cabin into one large wing instead of a tube. - Faury said the shift is a 30-to-40-year prospect and better suited to widebody aircraft, not the narrowbody work Airbus is targeting first. - Airbus has studied the idea for years, but its current next-generation focus is a late-2030s single-aisle jet. (airbus.com)
A blended-wing aircraft works by spreading lift across the whole body, not just two side-mounted wings, which can cut drag and fuel burn. Airbus has been testing that idea for years as it looks beyond today’s tube-and-wing jets. (airbus.com) Airbus chief executive Guillaume Faury said the concept could shape passenger aircraft in the next 30 to 40 years, with the cabin built into a single large wing. He described it as a long-range possibility for commercial aviation, not a near-term product launch. (businessinsider.com) (finance.yahoo.com) Faury said the layout is better suited to bigger widebody aircraft than to the narrowbody jets that dominate short-haul flying. A thicker blended wing creates too much drag for smaller single-aisle planes, he said. (finance.yahoo.com) (leehamnews.com) Airbus’ own research has pointed in the same direction. Its MAVERIC demonstrator, unveiled in 2020 after first flights in June 2019, was built to test whether a blended-wing body could deliver up to 20% fuel savings and a wider cabin layout. (airbus.com 1) (airbus.com 2) That work now sits alongside a more conventional Airbus roadmap. At its March 25, 2025 summit, Airbus said its next-generation single-aisle aircraft could enter service in the second half of the 2030s with 20% to 30% better fuel efficiency than current models. (airbus.com) The company’s current shortlist for that future narrowbody centers on new engines, longer foldable wings, batteries for hybrid functions, and lighter materials. Airbus said those are the “technology bricks” it is maturing now. (airbus.com) Airbus has also already narrowed its hydrogen plans. The ZEROe program launched in 2020 explored turbofan, turboprop, and blended-wing-body concepts using hydrogen combustion, but in 2025 Airbus said it would focus on a hydrogen fuel-cell design instead. (airbus.com) The timing matters because airlines and manufacturers are under pressure to cut fuel use without waiting for a single breakthrough. Airbus is still selling conventional aircraft in volume, with 8,754 commercial aircraft in its order book at the end of 2025, while it studies what comes after the A320 family. (airbus.com) Fuel prices are one reason the industry keeps revisiting radical shapes. Axios reported on April 22 that higher jet-fuel costs were reviving interest in blended-wing designs because fuel remains airlines’ biggest operating expense. (axios.com) For now, Airbus is presenting the blended-wing body as a research path and a long-horizon bet. The aircraft Faury described may look dramatic, but Airbus’ dated, public roadmap still points first to a more familiar single-aisle successor in the late 2030s. (airbus.com)
