Flight International is reporting today that Airbus is now looking at a potential 2017-2020 timetable before the airline will have a new single-aisle aircraft ready to roll.

This push back confirms what was being bandied around last year at the ISTAT conference. The problem is fuel consumption. Before Airbus and Boeing can guarantee that a new aircraft is 15-20% more fuel efficient — they are not going to put out a new airplane. And if  they can’t post at least that level of efficiency improvement, airlines are not going to want any of the new airplanes.

So — it all goes back to the engines.

According to the article,

“Airbus’s chief operating officer customers, John Leahy, says the development of new engine technology is dictating the pace of new narrowbodies from Airbus and Boeing. “The engine-makers say the technology won’t be around until 2015, so we’re looking at 2017-20 for the next-generation single-aisle,” he says.

This is later than Airbus previously indicated, having until now maintained that it expected the next-generation aircraft to be available from the middle of the next decade – a schedule with which its rival Boeing concurred last year.”

Trust me. Boeing doesn’t have a hot shot rocket engine parked on the back forty that burns 20% less fuel either.

Clearly one of the U.S. airlines most affected by this delay is American Airlines — which now finds itself in the unenviable position of sitting on an increasingly expensive fleet of older MD-80s it would like to get rid of sooner than later. But with no new single-aisle aircraft now on the horizon for possibly another 10 years from either Airbus or Boeing — this is going to leave American in the position of having to beef up its fleet with existing generation aircraft.

Bad timing.