Perhaps you too have been wondering when you saw Boeing 737s and 757s sprouting winglets: why was the Airbus 320 family stuck with the old-fashioned wingtip fences? Winglets have been shown to bring substantial (up to 5 %) reduction in fuel burn and the Aviation Partners, Inc. (API) blended winglet design, patented in 1994, have been around for many years.
Why was Airbus resisting?
I have talked to airline people who have had experience with specifying aircraft they were going to buy from both Boeing and Airbus. If I say they had a very low opinion of the European manufacturer’s relationship with customers, I am not even coming close to what they said. Remember the story of the A350? Had it not been for a few very vocal customers practically beating Airbus on the head, the folks in Toulouse would have not deviated from their original, rather outdated, ideas.
One can only surmise but it is probably true to say that with the 320 selling like hot cakes, Airbus simply did not much care. Why spend money and effort on improving something when it was being bought as it was, without fancy new appendages like winglets? It is interesting that Airbus customers were not banging the door about this… may be they had but there was nobody home. In any case, when the API winglets were tried on a JetBlue Airways A320, the 5 % fuel saving was actually demonstrated. By not adopting winglets much earlier, Airbus caused its customers to lose a lot of money quite unnecessarily.
Now, with the A320NEO on the horizon, Airbus is changing tack and is offering what it calls “sharklets” as standard on the NEO and as optional equipment on new-build legacy versions of the 320 family. Airbus claims a 3.5 % fuel consumption reduction for the 2.5 meter tall sharklets.
Why they call it a sharklet rather then a winglet is a mystery. Are they aware that Sharklet Technologies is a company making specially textured material to reduce the transmission of bacteria from the surface of things to people? Anyway, the project hasalready run into some serious headwind. API wants Airbus to pay royalties on the winglet/sharklet since, as they claim, it infringes a patent API has on its own blended winglet design.
Airbus is disputing the claim. API is baffled since they have been working with Airbus to show what the API winglet can do on an A320 with test flights having been flown out of Toulouse and also in the US on JetBlue aircraft.
API is determined to protect its patented technology and intellectual property and it will be up to the courts to determine who is right and whether Airbus will in fact have to pay.
If you ask me, calling the winglet a sharklet might, just might, indicate a twinge of bad conscience about the origins of the technology… well, we will see.