Scribd
Upload
198 views3 pages

An Aircraft Worth Its Weight in Gold?: Announced Airbus List Prices List Prices of Its Aircraft

The document compares the price per kilogram of different types of commercial and military aircraft, including: - Commercial aircraft prices range from around $1,700 per kg for the A380 to over $3,000 per kg for the A350-900 and 787-9. Smaller Airbus aircraft are among the most expensive. - Military transport aircraft are on average 25% more expensive than commercial aircraft per kg, at around $2,100/kg, despite carrying less passenger systems. They contain significant military technology. - Fighter aircraft are the most expensive at around $6,700/kg, which is 3-4 times more than commercial or military transport aircraft per kg, due to

Uploaded by

ffontana
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
198 views3 pages

An Aircraft Worth Its Weight in Gold?: Announced Airbus List Prices List Prices of Its Aircraft

The document compares the price per kilogram of different types of commercial and military aircraft, including: - Commercial aircraft prices range from around $1,700 per kg for the A380 to over $3,000 per kg for the A350-900 and 787-9. Smaller Airbus aircraft are among the most expensive. - Military transport aircraft are on average 25% more expensive than commercial aircraft per kg, at around $2,100/kg, despite carrying less passenger systems. They contain significant military technology. - Fighter aircraft are the most expensive at around $6,700/kg, which is 3-4 times more than commercial or military transport aircraft per kg, due to

Uploaded by

ffontana
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

An aircraft worth its weight in gold?

Airbus announced last January that it had raised the list prices of its commercial aircraft
by an average of 5.8%. It had not updated its prices since 2008. You may see the current
prices here: Airbus list prices.

Boeing also discloses in its website the range of list prices of its aircraft. Those prices
haven’t been increased in the last two years.

Few years ago, I saw for the first time a comparison of prices of aircraft per kilogram. It
was prepared by a teacher I had at EOI Business School in Seville, Felipe Moran, who
later has become a co-worker. With this post I will start a series of comparisons, the
first one being precisely that one: an update on price per kilogram of aircraft.

We already saw where to get the prices from. The other input we are going to use is the
weight of the aircraft, what is called: Operating Empty Weight (OEW). You may find
this information in various places, I recommend you to pay a visit to Boeing’s “Airplane
Characteristics for Airport Planning”, where you will find very detailed data of all its
commercial aircraft. (While gathering this info I also came across the following section
dedicated to fun facts of the legendary Jumbo 747).

Combining these inputs we can build the following table.

Price per kg of commercial aircraft.

Some facts may counter intuition:


 There doesn’t seem to be a clear discrimination between older and newer aircraft
(A380 and some 787 models rank among cheapest, while A350-900 and 787-9
are among the most expensive).
 Smaller Airbuses rank among the most expensive aircraft in a per kg basis
despite the suggested price war that was reported by the specialized press in the
recent years.

With the exceptions of A350-900 and 787-9 there seems to be a very slight trend in
bigger aircraft being cheaper in this per kg basis. One may argue that once the frame of
a certain size is built, building a bigger one might not cost that much.

Now, let’s talk about the Military Transport business. Do we think those aircraft are
more or less expensive? On one hand, those aircraft are not carrying systems such as the
in-flight entertainment and, on the other, the scale of the market is smaller (with few
exceptions such as the C-130) and they do carry diverse military systems, protections,
etc. What is the trend weighting more in the balance?

Military transport aircraft price per kg.

As you can see, military transport aircraft are on average 25% more expensive on a per
kg basis. There is much more technology in them than people tends to think… they are
clearly not just flying trucks.

As you may have noted I have not included any sources for the prices of these aircraft,
since they are rarely disclosed. I have used prices reported by the press and US budgets.

Let’s stretch the argument a bit more… What is the trend for fighter aircraft? This time
scales are bigger than in military transport. Does this make them cheaper? See the
table.

Fighter aircraft price per kg.

Not even close. Fighters are around 3.2 and 4 times more expensive than military
transport and commercial aircraft, respectively, on a per kg basis.
We can see in the following graphic all these aircraft together and maybe spot those
trends.

Aircraft prices per kg.

Now that we have an idea of how much aircraft cost per kg (1,700$ commercial aircraft,
2,100$ military transport aircraft and 6,700$ fighter aircraft)… is this expensive?
Expensive compare to what?

You might also like