Airbus’ budget customers feel buyer’s remorse over new XLR jet

Airbus SE marketed its A321XLR as offering widebody-jet capabilities at narrowbody economics, an attractive proposition to low-cost airlines seeking to expand their radius. Now some customers are showing buyer’s remorse as they struggle to unlock those advantages.The A321XLR was supposed to open long-haul routes for Wizz Air Holdings, Frontier Airlines and JetBlue Airways Corp, with the trio ordering a combined 78 XLRs. But the airlines may end up taking just 23 units, some saying the plane’s real range is shorter than advertised when it’s full of people and luggage.The extra fuel tank, touted by Airbus as a game changer, meanwhile limits space for potentially lucrative cargo."It appears that the market for the XLR is not as deep as Airbus had initially expected,” said Dudley Shanley, an analyst at Goodbody.The A320 model is by far Airbus’s most successful aircraft, prompting the European manufacturer to extend its specs over the years with larger variants like the A321, which is the family’s top seller.With the XLR, which stands for "extra-long range,” Airbus may have hit the boundaries of what an airframe originally conceived in the 1980s can achieve, given its limitations on cabin and cargo-hold space when compared with true widebody aircraft such as the Airbus A330 and A350.The manufacturer says the XLR can fly 4,700 nautical miles, or about 11 hours, with a maximum 244 passengers. That’s about 18% farther than the A321neo. The XLR also burns 30% less fuel, Airbus says.On paper, those statistics should be attractive. Yet the spate of cancellations raises questions about whether Airbus misjudged the market — and possibly produced one A320 derivative too many."The XLR offers more range but is relatively niche,” said Richard Evans, a senior consultant at aviation analytics company Cirium. "Ancillary revenue is very important to low-cost carriers, and flying longer-range missions goes against this in some ways.”Some airlines also had more ambitious strategies when they signed deals six years ago — before the pandemic, wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, the energy crisis and the global tariff frenzy.The dissatisfaction also may be a warning to Boeing Co, which scrapped plans for a midrange jetliner called the NMA in 2022. Its closest competitor is the discontinued 757.Airbus, however, paints a rosier picture. The XLR is "doing very well in service,” and there’s a "very high degree of satisfaction” among customers, CEO Guillaume Faury said last month at a Washington conference.An XLR costs about $72mn, or $9mn more than the A321 neo, according to Cirium data. That means low-cost carriers have to justify paying more for a craft that may not generate as much return as expected, Evans said.Wizz’s two XLRs, configured with almost the maximum number of seats, fly seven-hour trips from the UK to Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah and Medina.However, the model is "underperforming versus expectations” on range and weight capabilities, Chief Executive Officer Jozsef Varadi said in an August interview. The Budapest-based company now only wants to take about a quarter of its initial order."The weight, of course, is an issue because the more weight the aircraft carries, the more expensive it becomes to operate,” Varadi said.Denver-based Frontier dropped its order for 18 XLRs last summer, citing performance and range issues, Aviation Week reported. JetBlue will sell two XLRs after deferring about $3bn worth of aircraft orders into the 2030s."Inducting these XLR deliveries would result in a costly orphan fleet of two aircraft for the remainder of the decade,” CEO Joanna Geraghty said during a July 29 earnings call.Philippines-based Cebu Air Inc. signed a memorandum of understanding for 10 jets but subsequently dropped it because of delays, specification changes and weight limitations, a spokesperson said.Legacy airlines are among the XLR’s biggest champions. United Airlines Holdings, American Airlines Group and InterGlobe Aviation, which runs IndiGo, placed big orders.IAG SA’s Iberia airline said the plane is more fuel-efficient than expected, and Qantas Airways Ltd. recently ordered 20 more."In terms of the legacy carriers, the XLR is a better fit,” Shanley said. "It allows them to replace larger aircraft on some of the thinner long-haul routes as well as open up new destinations.”Full-service airlines typically split the cabin into two classes, providing more legroom, in-flight entertainment and meals.