Airbus to begin testing the Wing of Tomorrow on A321neo

Free for nonsubsribers By Scott Hamilton July 22, 2026, © Leeham News: Airbus will begin testing its Wing of Tomorrow on an A321neo. This is the first time the program’s wing concepts will be tested on a production airliner. “Airbus is launching a new flight-test campaign to evaluate the performance of high-span wings for next-generation single-aisle aircraft, marking the next phase of one of its largest research and technology programs, Wing of Tomorrow,” the company said in a statement. There will be a three-year development period before the folding wings are installed on an A321neo for flight testing. Boeing’s 777X has folding tips on the 777X. The Wing of Tomorrow will have 4.5 meters of folding wing. The test flight wings will be fixed but will have the same shape. The futuristic wing will be crucial to improving operating efficiency in the next generation single-aisle airplane. Boeing is designing a similar wing. However, the timing of Airbus’ move could pose a threat to Boeing. Here’s why. Boeing is in the process of recovering from a series of crises since the March 2019 grounding of the 737 MAX, which extended for 21 months. Financial damage from the Covid-19, the MAX grounding and a 20-month suspension of deliveries of the 787 due to a production flaw cost the company billions of dollars in revenues and cash. The long-delayed certifications of the 737-7, 737-10 and 777-9 also have taken their toll. So did a 53-day 2024 strike by the touch-labor union, the IAM 751. Boeing flirted with bankruptcy during the strike. It had to raise billions of dollars in debt at the start of the pandemic and another $24bn in equity and debt during the strike. Its long-term debt on Dec. 31, 2018, the last year of normal operations, was $10.8bn. Today, Boeing has about $50bn in long term debt that must be retired. Boeing needs uninterrupted cash flow and profits from the 737, 777 and 787 production lines to retire this debt and fund new airplane programs. Analysis by LNA concluded that it will take at least 10 years to repair the balance sheet. Once a new airplane program is announced, sales of the incumbent airplane begin to fade and financial margins shrink. The 737 is Boeing’s cash cow. Internally, Boeing doesn’t want a 737 replacement to enter service until 2040. This means a program launch around 2033. Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury is on record saying that he wants to launch a new program in 2030 with entry into service around 2038. Launching a replacement for the A321neo three years ahead of Boeing’s desire would put pressure on the 737 program, delaying Boeing’s full financial recovery. This means Boeing might have to return to the equity and/or debt markets to fund a replacement program. The latter adds interest expense that must be serviced. In the chess game between Airbus and Boeing, there is always a debate of who is the first one to move. The first mover can gain the early sales advantage. This happened with the 787 program. However, it could give the second mover the ability to design a slightly better aircraft that out-performs the first mover. While Airbus muffed its 787 response with its answer, an extreme makeover of the A330 to become the first iteration of the A350, there is another key factor in the timing for the replacement of the A320 and 737 families. That’s the engine. CFM is placing its bet on the Open Fan RISE engine to power the next generation airplanes. Pratt & Whitney is placing its bet on the Gen 2 GTF engine. Rolls-Royce is betting on its UltraFan30, also a geared turbofan engine. GE Aerospace, a 50-50 partner in CFM, claims the RISE will have up to 20% lower fuel consumption than today’s PW GTF and CFM’s LEAP. PW and Rolls acknowledge that the Gen 2 and UltraFan’s fuel consumption improvements will be in the 8%-10% range. Skepticism of the Open Fan on technical and safety reasons remain. CFM claims these concerns have been overcome, but the engine so far is still a computer and floor-testing engine. Flight tests won’t begin until 2029. If CFM is right and PW and RR are wrong, the airframer risk choosing the wrong engine if they stick with the geared turbofan. Airbus has been known to favor the Open Fan, but the chief advocate, Christian Scherer, retired this year. Boeing is known to be skeptical of the Open Fan but hasn’t ruled it out. If Airbus moves first with the Open Fan but for whatever reason, the market rejects it, Boeing’s second mover with a geared turbofan engine might prove the better choice. On the other hand, if Boeing decides to stick with the GTF and the Open Fan proves to be a success, then Boeing’s airplane will be at a severe operating cost disadvantage. Regardless of these important considerations, if Airbus moves first against a weaker Boeing, the latter’s recovery timeline will be threatened. For daily Farnborough International Airshow coverage, see our media partner AIN here. I wonder if there would be any market for an A321neo with these extended wingtips in a fixed position (no folding hinges), hence requiring larger airport gate, but greatly simplifying certification. Embrear manage to gain close to 7% fuel burn with the E175+ large winglets. I like your logic, doing a parallel track with the improved Wings for the A321 plus possibly a GTF2 (which should still fit) – should allow to utilize the current infrastructure to build planes. While you work in parallel on the full new Narrowbody incl. Openfan and a slower ramp up etc. My thoughts exactly. Seems like a good path to raise the efficiency of current aircraft by offering a fixed wing extension, a neo ewo Current wing would need to be strengthened, but the test aircraft should work that out as they would have to do it anyway for testing. If all goes well, it could be a tantalising step to a completely new aircraft. Wonder if if could be retrofitted to current aircraft Interesing idea but it hits the hard wall of reality. You wold have to have wide body gates. Yes you can sneak in a few here and there but the days of slow turn around are gone. You have to be able to gate as soon as you land. Ok, A380/747-8? Caused large disruptions and that was over a much smaller number of boardings and landings. I saw FedEx manage it by adding two A380 specific gates in Anchorage. The 777F fit in nicely. They then had to re-striped their other gates and juggle them. They had the room as they went all in on 777F. In the case of a already crowded barely fit Single Aisle, to get a WOT in you rippled all the gates. Jetway’s wrong, lobbies wrong. Fewer gates. How well is that going to go over? I do not see it. In addition to folding wingtips like the 777X, this wing appears to be thinner, with higher aspect ratio, and has other refinements. A noticeable difference is the engine mounts, which replace the pylons and position the engines out in front and close under the wing, like the 737 MAX. Oh oh, now you said the quiet part out loud. The A321 neo already has the engines placed on the pylons well forward of leading edge. Its no change wait…didn’t Airbus just ask the EU for a loan for the next single aisle aircraft development and now almost $6 billion share buyback!…just more “Feeding at the Public Trough” “Airbus shares jumped more than 5% on Wednesday after the European planemaker launched a €5 billion ($5.7 billion) share buyback programme and unveiled new mid-term targets including a near doubling of profits by 2029.” EU loan The European Investment Bank (EIB), the EU’s lending arm, announced its largest commercial loan ever on Monday, saying it would provide plane manufacturer Airbus with €3 billion ($3.4 billion) to boost the company’s research and development efforts. data: https://www.financecharts.com/stocks/BA/cash-flow/repurchase-of-capital-stock goto: “Boeing Share Buybacks History” $3B is Boeing’s volume of a single transaction ( of many in a year ) done in circumstances that were not really of the kind “what to do with all that money we have” any comments? The question is, Airbus claim was they needed money to compete. Who builds the most commercial aircrft in the World? So, they are wildly successful and still need bail outs? They got a hand out in Alabama as well. I do not think anyone should be doing this but then the ugly reality sets in. C919 is the ultimate consequence. Built and certified by the government. Talk about Regulatory Capture (owned totally -and they dictate the sales). Phew. Your right Trans If the WTO was effective and had a large commercial aircraft agreement in place like back in the day, they could had China involved and limit the Chinese government funding for their commercial aircraft industry US might have good case on Airbus getting “subsidized” loan for developing aircraft this time around, Airbus could go to the open market for the loan at the “current” borrowing rates, can’t play the poor act with $6 billion share buyback and wanting more favorable borrowing terms The share buy back this week (€5 billion) was announced after the EIB loan came through (June 29). Fancy that The other aspect here is Airbus is supposedly profitable. Years of delivering more aircraft than Boineg (not that it was hard at times) So, if they are profitable, they do not need to get FLM As much as I admire what Airbus has done and its approach to labor, if they are forever in hock to Govts, then its a jobs program. At least be honest about it. We recycle money to have a tech sector. We are not a stand alone successful business. China just took it to the logical conclusion. Of course you see what happens when a govt has full control. Its totally risk adverse and you get 8 a year roughly (might be a bit more) Not exactly a success story by any metric. By any measure, that requires a huge tariff (I continue to not believe EASA will cert it, if Boeing has to prove every Nut and Bolt (as does Airbus) then COMAC is the same, no data, no cert). I know I am repeating myself but the absurdity of a totally self certified program that is not competitive……. call it what it is. The ever moving 929 is worse as it HAS to fly internationally or there is close to zero reason for it. A330 regional segment aside. While Ii do not see EASA bussing the system open, its is the exact opposite of the Boeing problem before. EASA accepted cert without doing their homework. Yea I know, agreements and all that. So in a weird twist of Sci Fi, EASA accepts China self cert, FAA has every right to say, no, we don’t. None of the specs have been proven nor is the factory got a mfg certificate that is approved. Bjorn has done an outstanding job of reporting on the certification process. EASA just throws it all out the window? By those metric Brazil, Japan and Canada would refuse it as well. I continue to note Brazil was the ONLY entity that spotted MCAS and had it put in the manual. Talk about blowing up certification standards that are no longer US but the real Single Aisle mfgs. It should be noted China does not export any SEL and for good reason. No certification (do they even make any?) So, the WOT is a standard jet pylon bird. Does anyone seriously think a RISE engine risk is going to sell after the GTF and LEAP huge service impacts? P&W has an upgraded not backwards compatible GTF in the works. With enough test proof, I can see airlines going for that. RR and CFM are not going to be viewed kindly A long time ago I thought Airbus would come up with an NMA A322. But they limited their efforts to the A321XLR.. https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcQU9Wws310MyYvNFycBA4oN76UnZguSb2TW4A&usqp=CAU The problem is what Boeing is facing as well as the hard reality. A 737 is still equal to a newer A320 (agreed its had updates) As noted, the big improvments are engines. For those we have one more. The High Tech materials PW GTF. All RISE stuff aside, that alone is enough to shift it to a Jet (best guess, 10% improvement) Kind of under the radar is PW was conservation with the Fan Ratio. They had some kind of variable mechanism in the wings in case it did not work. They found it was not needed and dropped it. It was only there for compressor stall purposes (if needed) So they fine tune the GTF ratio, max (pun) out materials and they match and likely flat out beat any RISE theoretical. So Airbus seems to have a Trump (pun) card to play with the wing. What Boeing does? Take P&W up on the engine offer? A new MAX wing? If Airbus did both a WOT and an engine, then Boeing has no choice. New Bird. But, the timelines are long. 3 years to just test the WOT let alone the hinge design and into cert and production. 2035? At least in theory Boeing is fully recovered and can launch and all new. Overall it would be somewhat better than a modded A321. Not huge, 5% maybe. Airlines and lessors are looking at it all and while they may go for a derivative engine, no one is going to go for an all new offering from CFM or RR (or I do not think they will). Remotely a 2nd engine choice but then in a straight up derivative PW GTF vs an all new RR and CFM? hmmm. it ain’t over till its over article title China is said to seek new Boeing order terms, raising doubts on Trump-Xi deal “China is seeking additional guarantees before moving ahead with a proposed purchase of 200 Boeing (BA) aircraft” “Beijing wants long-term assurances that the U.S. will continue supplying engines, spare parts and maintenance support after the aircraft are delivered. U.S. officials contend those commitments weren’t part of the original understanding between the two leaders.” “Beijing wants long-term assurances that the U.S. will continue supplying engines, spare parts and maintenance support after the aircraft are delivered.” Sounds reasonable enough.. and you wonder why the Chinese are developing/building their indigenous commercial aircraft ecosystems what do you expect from a country that tariffs wooden hockey stick from Canada! With China, a trade deal is also a political and foreign policy deal. Their airlines are state controlled. We’ve seen that over and over again. So have to look at any deal as subject to political winds. Further they use obfuscation and opaqueness as political tools. Will they or won’t they? Only the CCP knows for sure. From a Xi standpoint (not China) I have no issues with that. Granted, per the WTO, its only as good as the penalty. Boeing could aid that with a legal documented that says, no cancellation penalties if what they ask for is violated, down payments returned. Any government can, will and has gone back on all sorts of treaties. Rip it up and gone. As we are seeing, what was presumed never to happen has happened, is happening. Boeing does not control the nut job but it can give what assurances it can. If its signed legal document then it has some meaning (granted the current Supreme Court can violate anything with their pretzels rational but. ) A side example is the Seized Alaska Airplane for flying booze into a Dry Bush Village (they can opt to be dry) The argument is not that he did it (9 gallons of beer is way beyond a present for the passenger brother). But does Alaska Law allow them to seize the aircraft? Jail yes, fines yes, seize the airplane? Fish and Game can do that for a game violation but its not written in law you can for a Dry Village Violation. That is the kind of case that has merit. I have zero sympathy for the owner of the aircraft, but as a legal principle, that is important (or used to be).