Odds and Ends: Boeing earnings call; US Airways Media; 787 update Day

There’s a lot of news happening today and tomorrow.

NTSB Hearing: The NTSB hearing on the Japan Air Lines Boeing 787 battery fire is today and tomorrow. This can be followed live (and later archived) here.

Boeing Earnings Call: This is Wednesday, April 24. This can be followed here. Expect a fair amount of discussion about the impact of the 787 battery issues on earnings. Ordinarily we’d have our usual live running coverage but instead we will be at the…

US Airways Media Day: This airline has an annual media day and it was scheduled for today a long time ago. We’ve been a regular at this, and due to the pending American Airlines merger, apparently there is going to be big press demand: they had to move the venue from headquarters to a hotel location in Scottsdale. We’ll have several updates throughout the day.

787 Update: LOT Polish Airlines expects to return its two 787s to service in June; Ethiopian this month; the Japanese airlines could return the airplane to service this month but ANA plans up to 200 test flights first, so this will slip to May and perhaps June. It’s unclear when Japan Air Lines plans a return-to-service (RTS). Qatar Airways wants to RTS this month. United Air Lines appears planning next month.

12 Comments on “Odds and Ends: Boeing earnings call; US Airways Media; 787 update Day

  1. Glad to see the B787 program moving towards some semblance of “normalcy”. Now can Boeing stop or slow down the recent A350-1000XWB surge?

    • They’ll have a difficult time doing that if they are still waiting for Airbus to “define the poor selling A350-1000”. 😉

    • Not too much of a surge, but interest in the A350-1000 seems to be increasing. The 777X appears to have garnered much of the interest in the VLA twin category. I hope Boeing will not delay as they did with the 737MAX. Too late out of the gate will mean lost sales just as the long delay on the 787 program caused orders to migrate to the A330.

  2. Since 2008 Airbus has had 152 net orders for the A350 (including British Airway’s recent order for 18 -1000s).

    Over the same period Boeing has had negative 20 net orders for the 787 – more cancellations than new orders. There were more orders for the 787 5 years ago than there are now!

    • It’s a negative 2 net orders for the 787 over that time period if you count the 18 options that British Airways decided to firm up. I know that the process is not finalized yet but it seems only fair to count them if you are counting the MoU for 18 A350-1000’s.

  3. steve :
    The 777X appears to have garnered much of the interest in the VLA twin category. I

    Given that it’s the only VLA twin it would be worrying if it didn’t, wouldn’t you agree? :p

  4. Industry sources, analysts and potential buyers say Boeing’s idea of revamping its long-serving 777 was rapidly gathering momentum even before British Airways (ICAG.L) signed a $6 billion order for 18 of Airbus’s new A350-1000 jets on Monday.

    Airbus’s victorious climax to a three-year courtship cracks Boeing’s virtually complete hold on BA’s long-haul fleet and makes it almost certain the U.S. group will show its hand by formally offering a revamped “777X” very soon, the sources said.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/24/us-boeing-minijumbo-idUSBRE93N0IK20130424

  5. steve :Not too much of a surge, but interest in the A350-1000 seems to be increasing. The 777X appears to have garnered much of the interest in the VLA twin category. I hope Boeing will not delay as they did with the 737MAX. Too late out of the gate will mean lost sales just as the long delay on the 787 program caused orders to migrate to the A330.

    The VLA “twin category”; how would you define that?

    The A350-1000 will have an effective cabin floor area of around 315 m2 (295 m2 between midpoints of Doors 1 and 5; in a 10 door configuration), while the effective cabin floor area for the 777-300ER is slightly less than 330m2 (309 m2 between midpoint of Doors 1 and 5). The 777-9X will be stretched by less than 3 meters — per current plans — hence the effective cabin floor area of the 777-9X will not be greater than some 345 m2. In comparison, the effective cabin floor area of the 747-8I is roughly 415 m2, while for the A380-800 it is roughly 545 m2.

    This notion that the 777-9X will somehow become a “VLA twin” — while the 777-300ER and the A350-1000 are not — is utterly ridiculous IMO. Not even an Emirates 777-9X with the untypical — per current premier class standards — 2-3-2 business class configuration, and 10 across in economy, wouldn’t have more seats than around 380 (three class configuration).

    Since an A380-900 should have some 300 m2 greater floor area than the 777-300ER, IMO there will be a market for “something in between” a decade hence.

    • Boeing shows the 777-9X as having 406 seats. VLA is +400 seats. So nominally the 9X qualifies as the first VLA twin. You are correct that in reality fewer passengers will typically be configured. The 747-8i is advertised by Boeing as a 467 passenger airplane but LH has fewer than 400.

      • The 777-9X will have less than 5 percent greater floor area than the 777-300ER. In my book the 777-300ER is VLA if the 777-9X is a VLA.;-)

        The fact of the matter is that the 777-9X is going to be significantly smaller than the 747-8I, and will be smaller (by some 5 percent) than the 747-400. The 747-8I can accommodate slightly more than 400 passengers in three classes in a like-for-like comparsion with a generic A380-800 configuration as operated by the majority of current A380 operators.

        May I suggest that a VLA (twin or not) should have an effective cabin area of at least 400 m2 if it is to regarded as a VLA. AFAIK, the 747-400 was never a “VLA”. However, if the 777-9X has to be turned into a VLA for some silly reason, IMO all 747-versions, the A340-600 and the 777-300ER should be regarded as VLAs as well.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *