Throughout 1988, some Airbus engineers, led by Jean Roeder, began secretly designing a very big plane. It was made to allow Airbus to rival Boeing, whose 747 had been the only very big plane since the 1970s. Airbus made the project public at the 1990 Farnborough Air Show. Airbus wanted to make this plane 15% cheaper to use than the Boeing 747-400. In June 1994, Airbus named the plane the A3XX.