It’s official: United orders 150 firm Boeing jets (100 Max, 50 900ERs)

Press conference

Jeff Smisek, CEO United

  • 100 737 Max 9
  • 50 737-900ERs, replaces 757s flown domestically.

Jim McNerney, CEO The Boeing Co.

  • Thanks to UA for putting trust in us.
  • Boeing and United go back a long, long way. Once part of the same company.
  • Boeing has delivered more than 1,400 airplanes to United and Continental.
  • With today’s order, the 737 program has now surpassed 10,000 orders.

Boeing Photo.

Ray Conner, President Boeing Commercial Airplanes

  • The 737 MAX like the 787 will provide customers best solution in air transport.
  • Will provide greater value in fuel efficiency. MAX, like the NG, is perfect match for United.

Q&A:

Smisek:

  • $14bn value, NG delivery begins in 2013. (Where did Boeing come up with delivery positions next year?–Editor.)
  • -900ERs replace 757s domestically, 9 MAX will replace other, less fuel efficient aircraft including A320s. We have 152 Airbus airplanes today.
  • First 787 due in late September. McNerney has personally guaranteed this.
  • We had extensive discussions with Airbus and Boeing. Spent almost the past year in discussions with engine and airframe manufacturers.
  • We’ll finance aircraft as we get closer to delivery.
  • Deciding factors we negotiated what we believe to be the best airplane with the best engines at the best price.

62 Comments on “It’s official: United orders 150 firm Boeing jets (100 Max, 50 900ERs)

  1. Good news for Boeing and the MAX. Additional firm orders is what this program needed most.

  2. Significant for Boeing for Max-9 and 900ERs; must have been a close call with A 321 ;which means Boeing learnt from AA fiasco and made sure ,the order is in the bag.Hope they will take A more seriously -in both NB and WB in their backyard.

  3. When the firm portions of this deal are done, united will operate more than 200 737-900ERs and 737-9s. Given UA’s interest in these aircraft was questioned here as recently as yesterday, this sounds like a fairly spectacular endorsement of the aircraft by UA to me! 🙂

    • Don’t worry, I’m someone will be along to imply that Boeing gave United such a colossal deal that they lost money on the sale any minute now. 😉

  4. Hello guys
    What’s truly impressive is the number of -MAX9 sold vs -MAX8. What does it mean ?

    • Well, UA’s primary goal is to replace their domestic 757 fleet (the overseas 757s will continue in service for the time being, United has extended the lease on those aircraft). So it makes sense for them to buy 737-9s.

    • If I have my numbers right, this order from UA for the B-737-9MAX makes the -9MAX the best selling model of the MAX series, so far. Lion Air made their B-737-9MAX order of 201 airplanes firm earlier this year, 15 from ALC, 5 from Avolon brings the -9MAX orders to at least 321 of the (approximately, if I am up to date on the firm orders) 600 B-737MAX orders.

  5. Congratulations to Boeing and United for this long expected order.

    Boeing letting this one slip was IMO unimaginable.

    I would not be surprised if the -9s in reality will replace many 737-800s and A320s, providing better economy and 10-15% growth per flight for the next 25 years.

    United doesn’t say so. But they also said the 300 seat A350 would replace the much larger 747-400 transpac (and some really thought so, until last month).

  6. And congratualtion for 10.000 737s of course, the 737 has become an aviation Icon. I think the 737-700 looks better then the stretched variants, a bit organic like the original 737s.

    BTW double click the 10.000 737 image, it has amazing resolution/sharpness

    • In high resolution we can also see all the tarmac warnings “No Pedestrians”. 🙂

  7. keesje :
    BTW double click the 10.000 737 image, it has amazing resolution/sharpness

    Everything you see beyond the fence at the top of that picture used to be part of the Renton Boeing site. It is now gyms, restaurants, retail stores and townhouses. Boeing has shrunk the footprint of the Renton site by about half in recent years by moving many employees to Everett, sales & execs to the BCA headquarters in Longacres, and by moving engineers directly supporting the 737 program into the production buildings. My first day on the job occurred just beyond the reach of the photo in what used to be a sea of desks in a WWII era engineering building. It is now a parking lot for a Target store 🙂

    • Time brings changes, this is always interesting to follow.

      Just been around in my birthtown Hamburg: Seeing a warehousing complex (The “Speicherstadt”) being converted to house various entertainment activities ( from banal to formal ) while former a cold store building has been converted to accomodate well to do pensioneers certainly gives funny feelings.

      seeing that 737 fuselage:
      How complete are these when they are transfered by rail?

      • That one is basically how they come on the cars from Witchita. Also, CM, that’s across the street from the Red Robin that you can see at the top of the frame. I’m personally thankful for all these restaurants, it provides more variety than the cafeterias.

    • I took up the challenge to find the spot on google earth, is Red Robin Gourmet Burgers above that aerodynamical suboptimal 737 tail?

      • Yes, 10,000 ordered B-737s is truely a historic mark in aviation history. Back in 1967 when LH ordered the first 30, or so B-737-100s, no one thought much of the airplane and Boeing had to quickly upgrade it the the B-737-200, then the -200ADV, which was the model that really got the ball rolling for the type.

  8. GOOD for Boeing and UA and what a good and necessary pat-on-the-
    back that was, for the slow selling 737MAX program!
    Congrats and cheers all around.
    Hopefully, it did NOT cost Boeing an arm and a leg to secure the deal,
    but whatever they put on the table must have been substantial, to cause
    AU to replace all their A320s/757s with the MAX and -900ERs AND to
    get THE OTHER BIG US 737 operator after SW, on board for the MAX!

    Early delivery positions, whatever the Boeing deal was and John Leahy
    dropping the ball for a change, must have been big factors.

    • Whatever the PR spin, this order was never going to be Airbus’s, given United’s BOD are ex Continental and pro Boeing. The fact Leahy walked away from this at an early juncture merely indicates his view that it was better not to have Airbus used as a bargaining tool when United negociated on price.

  9. Uwe :
    Time brings changes, this is always interesting to follow.
    Just been around in my birthtown Hamburg….

    An awesome city. I was there a couple years ago when the river was frozen over and people were partying on the ice. A sight to see! Also, the Starbucks in the old plaza near the train station has to be one of the best foreign manifestations from that Seattle company I have ever seen. Truly a great place to stop and warm up on a snowy night.

    Uwe :
    seeing that 737 fuselage:
    How complete are these when they are transfered by rail?

    Structurally complete, but no systems installed; just bare metal.

    • It is also cool to see how they are transported by rail – specially designed articulated rail car so the tail “swings” on tight turns. The fuselage clears bridges and tunnels by inches in places. It is fun to see a trail roll by with a bunch of airplane fuselages on it. The large building that is now a shopping mall once built the 757 fuselages.

    • Skating: The river ( Elbe ) or the “Alster” ( large lake north of the very center, historically the reservoir for a water wheel ) ? Starbucks is not really the core of “hamburgisch”.
      The restaurant in the cellar of the Rathaus would go more in that direction 😉

      Fuselages:
      Isn’t doing the stuffing on the limited access hulls a significant increase in workload and hassle and reduces testability?

  10. 10 000 orders..No matter my opinion about this frame, it just keeps on going and going and going. Along with the 747 it is an icon of aviation.

    The 737 has outlived many other frames. Impressive!

  11. Uwe :
    And said to have the occasional bullet hole

    That’s nothing more than an official “Made in the USA” mark. Or more likely an “I passed through the midwest” stamp 😀

      • I like it! Looks as if it’s set up for the Peking to Paris race… oh how I wish I was one of the rich sponsored brats who gets to do that for a living!

  12. The irony of Boeing employees standing in front of a fuselage they did not make is almost laughable.

    • Well, a lot of them are engineers rather than assembly line workers so…”designed” rather than “built”. And while defining the word “irony” can lead to arguments that last hours and reach no conclusion, I don’t find this situation to be ironic, since they do indeed assemble 737s in Renton, and that’s a major component. Laugh all you want though, by all means.

  13. Definitely Congratulations for Boeing on this order. Personally, I wasn’t so sure this order was a lock going in. Keep in mind that United retired all of its 737 fleet about 10 years ago and replaced them with A320s. The only 737s in their fleet currently are the planes and orders they inherited from Continental in the merger. So, basicly, this was going to be the first big narrowbody order from an amalgamation of an exclusive A320 customer and an exclusive 737 customer. Seemed like it could be a toss-up, but I’m glad it ended up the way it did. Hopefully Boeing can land a couple more decent orders in the next month or 2.

    • I would suggest that whilst this can be viewed as laudable in some spheres, the mere fact it also hides design limitations and drawbacks in the fuselage from those same 60s that were not addressed in the NG series, nor, it appears in the MAX is strange to say the least. A curious but worrying mix of the past and present.

      • The fact that hundreds or airlines ordered, bought, and continue to use the B-737 from the -200 thru today’s -900ER and tomorrow’s MAX series seem to disagree with your assessment of the design limitations of a mid 1960s vintage design. Ordering 10,000 of any type of airplane is truely a historic accomplishment. But the story line is deeper than that. If all the current committments for the NG and MAX series are converted to firm orders, the total number of B-737 arplanes comes out to over 11,000 airplanes.

        I think even the vintage DC-3 airliner only sold about 600 airplanes before production was interupted by WWII, then the number of total DC-3/C-47/R4D of all types sored to some 16,079 units if we include the nearly 5,000 built in the USSR and 500 built in Japan during that war. Yes, even the Japanese used the C-47 in WWII, they called it the Showa/Nakajima L2D2-1 Type 0.

        So, if we just look at the allies version of the C-47/R4D/Dakota (minus the USSR version which was called the Lisunov Li-2), the B-737 has already past the production mark with firm orders and committments, and is now looking at the total worldwide production

        • Entrenchment, lack of systems understanding and boldness in general.
          Same why you see only remakes and Nth followups or prequells from Hollywood.

          No real new ideas and unable to express those.

      • KC135..I’m by no means decrying the achievement of 10,000 orders for a single aircraft type by any means. It’s more a question of whether a 1960s fuselage is truly capable of delivering 60-70,000 flight cycles, given power upratings, wing re-designs, greater MTOWs. The report in Newsweek (see below) suggests that cost cutting exercises can leave this model vulnerable. Worth a read.

        • The B-737 has its fuselarge roots in the B-707, which also shared its fuselarge with the B-727, and B-757. While tragic fuselarge portions seperated in the Aloha accident, and breaks in some of Southwest’s B-737s, it has never been said this is a design fault. It is a maintenance fault and some of today’s modern tehniques are much better than what was done in the past. The B-707, B-727, B-737, and B-757 were originally designed as 60,000 cycle airplanes with up to 100,000 + hours of flying time. More than 99% of the older versions of these models safely exceeded the original Boeing design and the B-737NG series is designed to go to 85,000 to 90,000 cycles, now that most of the rivets have been eliminated (but the ‘glues’ used do need inspections and maintenance).

  14. WCOG :
    I’m personally thankful for all these restaurants, it provides more variety than the cafeterias.

    I don’t know if you have seen the cafeteria for Airbus employees in Toulouse; it’s absolutely fantastic! Even by the French standards. You don’t need to go out and don’t want to bring your lunch either. And it’s all subsidized by the company. Vive la France!

    • Regarding those Airbus cafeterias… 😉

      http://www.airspacemag.com/flight-today/cit-sweetman.html?c=y&page=3

      “We Germans thought we were coming to a French company, but it was the French who were totally lost,” says Jurgen Thomas, now special advisor to Airbus’ CEO, Noël Forgeard. “The French were hierarchical, with no delegation of power. They weren’t in a position to take a decision in a meeting.” The British and Germans resorted to subterfuge, Thomas recalls. “We let things leak ahead of the meeting, so that the French could propose it as their solution. It was much easier.”

      Thomas admits that some stereotypes of German management proved true: “There was still a Prussian disease. It was formal, the agenda had a time slot for each item, and there were separate paragraphs for everything.” The British encountered a different culture at the Airbus facility. At de Havilland’s Hatfield division there were six levels of company dining. “They had toilets for different levels of staff,” recalls Thomas. Airbus people took lunch in an all-ranks café. “You’d see a vice president having lunch with a secretary,” says Thomas. One senior executive from Hawker Siddeley stomped out in disgust.

    • Not that I ever worked for Airbus, but I have been there and at the cafeteria. It was superb! (Except the long line to the steak and fries station…).

  15. Yes this is a really great article. I have read it before when you recommended it in a previous thread. I am still grateful for that. I am also grateful for the Marcello piece above. Maurice André is my all-time favourite trumpet player. I always wondered how a coal miner could blow so much air out of his lungs! 🙂

    If you can read french there is a book that tells many anecdotes similar to the ones in the article. It is written by Bernard Ziegler who was head of operations for Airbus in Toulouse. The title is “Les Cow-boys d’Airbus (ISBN: 978-2708992177).

      • Yes I have tried the cafeteria at CERN. But that was in 1988, at the time of LEP construction. I was also very impressed by the quality and diversity of food there. Nothing to compare with Fermilab where I was just the year before. I particularly enjoyed the bistro at CERN where you could have a bear at any time of the day and hear for example a Russian physicist speak french to a Post-Doc student from France who would answer back using his best russian. Really amazing to watch!

        Because CERN is a truly international organization they say that the ideal CERN is one where the technicians are all German, the police British, the cooks French and the lovers Italian. 🙂

  16. Did any aircraft manufacturer anywhere in the world, ever produce ten
    thousand commercial aircraft of the same type?
    The DC3 maybe, but that number was essentially achieved with military
    aircraft versions of the DC2 and a small number of commercial DC3s.

    The 10,000 737 units produced since 1965, has to be recognized as a
    major aviation achievement and a major victory for Boeing.
    I am proud to have been part of this success story, by having directed the
    sale of several hundred’s of them in the Pacific and Europe, by having
    stuck my neck out twice, at a certain cost to my reputation in the home
    office, by strongly urging B., with the pressure from Lufthansa in my back,
    to 1) put the CFM-56 eng.on the a/p, which B. initially refused to do until
    AFTER LH purchase 56 737ADV a/ps and 2) to launch the -400 and kill
    the 7J7, which was not only a ridiculous 5 abreast 150 seater, but an
    A/P FROM WITHIN BOEING,
    WHICH WOULD HAVE DESTROYED THE WHOLE 737 SUCCESS STORY!

  17. SOL :
    A curious but worrying mix of the past and present.

    Tell us what you are worried about, SOL. Without some substance included with your comments, your post simply feels like fear mongering.

    • I refer to the Newsweek article dated Mar 19th of this year and entitled: “Is Boeing’s 737 an Airplane Prone to Problems?” which focuses on structural fatigue and refers back to a report by Prof. Tony Ingraffea of Cornell’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. There is also an additional article in “Popular Mechanics”, dated Apr 6th 2011 and entitled: “Southwest Airlines Scare: How the 737’s Fuselage Weakness Went Undetected”. Trust that satisfies your request.

      • KC135..If intellectual snobbery is an issue for you, you can always access Professor Ingraffea’s report direct. The fact remains that regardless of your perceptions of popular media, the report itself highlights the risks involved in “mixing up” the new with the old. Regards

  18. To some extent the mark “10000” shows that some things in aviation don’t change. The B737 gets its 4th wing, or call it 2nd iteration of the 2nd wing and 4th engine. Thanks to the pigheadedness of its customers (“commonality, commonality, commonality”) the many remaining 1960ies style system stay. In my eyes an opportunity missed, especially as the projected first flight in 2016 leaves plenty of time (MDD-Boeing used to design, test and certify entire leapfrog-technology widebodies in that time frame)*.
    Does someone remember Leahy comment “the A321 is the only B757 replacement”? Apparently, he was wrong.

    * … at least they thought they could.

    • I would not exclude a substantial Delta and/or United order for the A321 in the coming years, maybe sooner.

      The 737-9 and 737-900ER just aren’t great 757 replacements, regardless how much we admire the 737 or Boeing. Payload-range, airfield performance (Caribbean) and transcon (winter westbound) just aren’t great.

      Realities like that usually don’t let themselves be blogged away. Like DL, UA probably got a very good deal from a chocked and overrun Boeing. Still the 900ER and -9 will provide efficient growth for the next 25 years, replacing the current generation of 737s and A320s.

      Flaps 5, at sealevel, 15 degrees C, at 85t a 739ER needs 2873 meters, dry takeoff field length. Alot of runway. Now try a hot short Caribbean runway to Houston or LA, SFO.. or Chicago, Newark.. No problem, with a 75.

      • keesje, well, there you go again (I just had to use that Ronald Reagan quote, it fits so well here).

        I do not see any reason why DL and/or UA would order the A-321, or A-321NEO, now or in the future if they have the B-737-900ER and/or B-737-9MAX. Neither of these airplanes is a good replacement for 100% of the B-757-200 missions, but both can do about 90%-95% of those missions.

        I will point out (again) the B-737-900ER has an empty operating weight some 9,000 lbs less than the A-321OEO, and a MTOW of some 19,000 lbs less than the A-321. The engines on the B-739ER produce 3,000-6,000 lbs less thrust and the B-739ER has TRANSCON range, in both directions, all year long. The A-321OEO cannot say that. The B-739ER carries about 100 US Gallons of fuel (full tanks) less than the A-321, but has about a 250 nm range increase over the A-321 (with blended winglets). The A-321 does have a 1400′ runway take-off improvement over the B-737-900ER, if it is equipped with the optional 33,000 lb thrust CFM-56-5B3, or IAE V2533-A5 engines over the standard CFM-56-5B1, or IAE V-2530-A5 engines at 30,000 lbs. BTW, with the standard 30K engines the take-off runway performance of the B-737-900ER and A-321OEO is about the same.

        Your last sentence, BTW, was comparing the B-737-900ER to the B-757-200. Neither the B-739ER, nor the A-321 can compare to the performance of the B-757.

    • “…Thanks to the pigheadedness of its customers (“commonality, commonality, commonality”) the many remaining 1960ies style system stay…”

      It is developments such as these without the corresponding developments in fuselage design that are of concern, given the demands of LCC such as SWA and Ryanair. Can an aircraft whose fuselage was derived from the 727, handle the demands of current technology, with ever increasing daily flight cycles, MTOWs & payloads?

  19. “The 737 program has now surpassed 10,000 orders” .
    It’s a really nice picture, showing the crew assembling the 737 grouped in such a way as to symbolize the relevant number of the day.
    But I will NEVER get accustomed to that imperial number notation, which is separating orders of magnitude with a comma (10,000). It’s looking so terribly odd and illogical !
    The European metric notation for this is always 10’000 (with an apostrophe), as a comma can easily get mixed up with a decimal separation (10,000 kg equals to ten kilograms, it does NOT equal to ten thousand kilograms !).

    • Evin Ormond :
      But I will NEVER get accustomed to that imperial number notation, which is separating orders of magnitude with a comma (10,000). It’s looking so terribly odd and illogical !
      The European metric notation for this is always 10’000 (with an apostrophe), as a comma can easily get mixed up with a decimal separation (10,000 kg equals to ten kilograms, it does NOT equal to ten thousand kilograms !).

      Actually both the SI and NIST (US) standard specify a narrow space separating the groups of three digits (thousands). In Germany a dot is still commonly used (and of course the comma in US, UK and many Commonwealth countries). But an apostrophe for that is pretty rare even in Europe (except maybe Switzerland?), and definitely not an SI standard.

  20. BTW, keesje, did you realize the B-737-9MAX is out selling the A-321NEO by about 3:1?

    • My guess is the 9MAX takes sales from the 8MAX and not from the A321NEO.
      With improved engines the 9 better “fills” its payload / range chart.
      ( A bit like the move from A330-200 to A330-300 and the general industry trend
      to “one up” size )

      • I don’t agree with your theory, Uwe. The B-737-8MAX is also selling very well. They are two different mission airplanes with different capacities. The B-737-8MAX is a 162 seat airplane while the B-737-9MAX is a 200+ seat airplane.

    • Is it, or is that merely your interpretation? You’re apparently counting Lion’s order for 201 frames all towards the MAX-9, which is incorrect. We don’t know the model breakdown in the Lion Air order at this point, which will consist of -8 and -9s. Similarly, we also don’t know how many NEO customers will opt for the A321. There’s simply no way to obtain such “3:1” ratio.

  21. “the B-739ER has TRANSCON range, in both directions, all year long.”

    Let stop repeating that. It aint so according to its pilots.

    http://www.airlinepilotforums.com/archive/index.php/t-59113.html
    http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/487275-b737-900er-take-off-performance.html

    “I do not see any reason why DL and/or UA would order the A-321, or A-321NEO, now or in the future if they have the B-737-900ER and/or B-737-9MAX.”

    The 737-900/-9 and A321 are pretty similar, apart from payload-range, airfield performance, noise foot print, passenger and cargo capability, comfort, engine choice, container capability, fuel effiency, design age, aircraft sold and number of operators.

    • Then why is it B6 and US that have to make a fuel stop when flying a Bus TRANSCON and not DL, AA, or UA (and formerly CO) flying the B-737 TRANSCON. I have flown TRANSCON in the B-737-800W with DL many times and not once made a fuel stop along the route, in either direction, and year round. I have also made the same trips on a US A-320 and A-321 and had to make fuel stops going west bound, esspecially in the winter months. On all those trips, pax loads were 80% to 100% on trips from BOS to LAX, or SFO. The US Bus fuel stops were usually in PHX. Friends of mine who fly B6 say the same thing. I have not flown B6 TRANSCON so I have no personal experience with them on that route.

      BTW, all those guys on those forums are not pilots, airlines or otherwise.

  22. TB it seems the 737-900ER having to make fuel stops west bound in the winter is an unacceptable concept for you. Probably because of your long history of claiming they are not. Maybe this helps http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InncP4edfAU

    If can see DL, AA, UA not having to make fuel stops with -900ERs. They did not operate -900/ERs in the first place, for some reason. Continental did.

    • ROTFLMAO. MKE is about 1000 nm north of the direct route from ATL to SAN, so this was a scheduled stop along the ‘route’.

      Air Tran never flew the B-737-900ER, they flew the B-717 and B-73G, and as we all know the B-73G has more than enough range to fly non-stop TRANSCON.

      BTW, read my reply again. I said I have flown DL B-737-800W on those routes. CO has had the -900/-900ER for years now, and DL ordered them last year, UA just placed an order for another B-737-900ERs and B-737-9MAXs.

      Boeing lists the B-737-900ER (no winglets) with a range of 3200 nm, using 85% worst winds.

      The distance TRANSCON from BOS to SFO is 2350 nm. Using your Air Tran flight the direct distance ATL- SAN is 1644 nm, but by flying ATL-MKE-SAN the distance becomes 2092 nm.

      You might want to look at http://www.gcmap.com when you talk about distances, it gives a good referrence, but is not 100% accurate and cannot be used for flight planning.

  23. thysi :

    Actually both the SI and NIST (US) standard specify a narrow space separating the groups of three digits (thousands). In Germany a dot is still commonly used (and of course the comma in US, UK and many Commonwealth countries). But an apostrophe for that is pretty rare even in Europe (except maybe Switzerland?), and definitely not an SI standard.

    @thysi – I agree, a simple half space is the standard way how it should be written.
    If written manually and carelessly, an apostrophe could be read by mistake as an additional “1”.
    Unfortunately there is no half space available with the standard keyboard layouts. And a full space in itself is a source of error, too, as it might cause the reader to read the number “10 100” as two separate numbers, a “10” and a “100”.
    In view of this, I still stick to the apostrophe as the most practical way.

  24. KC135TopBoom :
    Newsweek???? LOL.

    The long, and apparently well researched, article in Newsweek was written by Clive Irving, the author of the acclaimed “Wide-Body: The Triumph of the 747”. Someone might not agree with the conclusions of the author in this Newsweek article but it is no reason to laugh out loud.

  25. Sorry, it’s really funny to re-read these comments almost 12 years later…

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