PARIS - In a powerful challenge to Boeing Co., Airbus Industrie announced Friday the launch of the world's largest passenger jet, a flying ''cruise ship'' that the European aeronautics company hopes will make it the world's number one airline manufacturer.
As part of its strategy, the four-nation European consortium will be converted into a corporation - Airbus Integrated Co. - to help it compete more effectively with Boeing.
''There will be a tremendous competition, a fair-play match between Boeing and Airbus,'' Jean-Luc Lagardere, co-CEO of the new company, said at a news conference in Paris. ''It will not be a war,'' he added, but an ''imaginative contest.''
Airbus chairman Noel Foregard called the A3XX double-decker jumbo a ''cruise ship'' - and with its plush lounge, library, bar, nursery and cozy lower level sleeping deck, the mammoth plane in some ways resembles luxury sea liner. One airline considering purchasing the plane has expressed interest in a casino.
The 555-seat standard A3XX, with a range of 8,150 miles, can be expanded to about 650 seats. That's well above the capacity of the 416-seat Boeing 747-400, the largest passenger jet now in service.
The main deck of the A3XX will be the widest in the world, with a floor area 43 percent greater than the largest existing plane.
As Airbus envisions it, every seat has its own set of armrests. Extra entrances will mean that boarding should take no longer on the A3XX than on today's current jumbos. In addition, Airbus is offering a separate entrance for top-paying passengers on the more exclusive upper deck, so they need not mingle with the mob below.
The company also said that longer runways would not be needed, as some have contended.
Since its creation in 1972, Airbus has steadily eaten away at the market share of commercial jetliners, first targeting Lockheed Martin, McDonnell Douglas and now Boeing. The company is betting the A3XX will help it crack Boeing's monopoly on long-haul jets.
Last year, Airbus surpassed Boeing in commercial airline orders with 476 to the American company's 391.
The new European company will be 80 percent-owned by the European Aeronautics Defense and Space Co., formed last year from the merger of France's Aerospatiale Matra, Germany's DaimlerChrysler Aerospace and Spain's Casa.
EADS said it believes there will be a demand for 1,500 A3XX over the next two decades, and it intends to capture half that market. It said eight leading customers have already expressed interest in acquiring 52 planes in the A3XX family.
Boeing has decided to modernize its trustworthy 747 family of planes rather than build its own mammoth jet. A proposed ''stretch'' version of the 747-400 would add about 100 seats.
A decision on whether to proceed with the stretch at an estimated cost of $3 billion to $4 billion will depend on interest from the airlines and airplane leasing companies, said John Dern, a Boeing spokesman.
The Airbus decision to go ahead with the $12 billion project promises to intensify competition between the two rivals with their opposing strategies for the future.
But Dern said Airbus still has a long way to go ''before they begin cutting metal.''
''It's just one step in the process. This is something that has been expected for some time,'' he said in Seattle. ''Now they've got to get customers to stand up and say they're interested in buying this airplane.''
Boeing estimates the market for an A3XX-size plane is much smaller, about 360 aircraft, because, ''most passengers, whenever possible, want to avoid congested hubs and want more point-to-point service'' that can be handled with existing jetliners, Dern said.
The A3XX announcement was accompanied by the restructuring of EADS, whose initial offering of up to 166.5 million shares is scheduled to appear on the Frankfurt and Paris stock exchanges July 10.
British Aerospace Systems, the fourth partner in Airbus Industrie, will hold the remaining 20 percent of Airbus Integrated Company and has an option to sell this stake to EADS after three years.
The conversion of Airbus into a corporation is expected to generate annual savings of $330 million by 2004.
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