Why Boeing and Airbus are called that. And why we have the A380 but not (yet) the A360
Since commercial aviation entered the 'jet age,' the era of jet or jet engines, in the second half [...]
Since commercial aviation entered the 'jet age,' the era of jet or jet engines, in the second half of the 1950s, there is one thing that all or most people take for granted: that aircraft produced by Boeing are named with acronyms beginning and ending with the number '7' and that those produced by Airbus begin with a '3'.
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To date, out of the American manufacturer's plants have come the Boeing 707, 727, 737, 747, 757, 767, 777, 787. The 717 was 'added' to rename McDonnell Douglas' MD-95 when Boeing bought the latter. And from the European manufacturer's plants we have had so far the Airbus A300, 310, 320, 330, 340, 350 and 380.
As for Boeing, the pre-'jet age' models did not follow the current numbering. In fact, the first Boeings (the company was founded as Pacific Aero Products Co. in 1916) were called Model 40, Model 80 and Model 247.
But, after World War II, the farm was restructured and Each department was associated with a three-digit number. Thus, for example, '500' denoted the department dealing with turbine engines, '600' the one devoted to rockets and missiles, and '700′ the one dedicated to the design of jet transport aircraft.
When, in July 1954, the first finished product from that department peeped out of the Everett hangar with the provisional name Boeing 367-80, the marketing department of the American manufacturer decided to rename the aircraft with the same identifier as the department that had 'birthed' it: 700.
After the first flight in August 1955, Boeing began promoting the quadriget to airlines and, to indicate, chose the number '707' because it was more appealing than '700'. With subsequent models it was decided to do the same, and so in 1963 the 727 was introduced, in 1967 the 737, and in 1969 the 747. And so on until the 787, Boeing's latest. The '717' was not actually skipped, but went initially to denote the 'tanker' version of the 707.
To date, only one commercial aircraft has not followed the 7×7 numbering: the Boeing 720, a shortened, shorter-range version of the 707. Boeing named it so at the request of United Airlines, the aircraft's launch customer.
Returning to the 7×7 series, after the 787 Dreamliner at Boeing. there still remains a three-digit number beginning and ending with '7': the 797 (which is said to be a medium-capacity medium-to-long-range aircraft). What's next. Boeing has not yet announced what it plans to call its future aircraft, but a hypothesis circulating is that it may continue with 8 at the beginning and again 7 or 8 at the end, like Boeing 807, 817, 827 and so on or Boeing 808, 818, 828 and so on.
Why Airbus decided to denote its airplanes with the three digits '3xx' is more intuitive. Its first plane, the A300, was built to be a 300-passenger transport aircraft (although in reality the companies later used it in configurations between 250 and 280 seats). The designations of later models left the '3' in front and the '0' at the bottom, changing instead to the second digit. Thus were born the A310, A320 (with older brother A321 and two younger brothers A318 and A319), A330, and so on.
The more observant will have noticed that European manufacturer skipped the A360 and A370, deciding instead to call its A380 super-jumbo. The 'jump' (from the A350) was decided to emphasize the exceptional size of the aircraft, which would have been the largest in the world. Yeah, but then Why not call it A390? Because, as a matter of marketing, the '9' was preferred to the 8′ winking at the Asian market where '8′ is the luckiest number, echoing 'wealth' and 'prosperity.'
Airbus has seen its choice only partially rewarded, given the small number of A380s ordered by Asian carriers (10 by Korean Air, 6 by Asiana, 12 by Singapore Airlines, 6 by Malaysia Airlines, 3 by All Nippon Airways, and 5 by China Southern Airlines, the only one of the three Chinese biggies to have purchased it).
In the future, we might therefore expect the announcement of an A360, more likely than an A370, which, with that '7', would risk echoing Boeing's numbering.
