Boeing Delivers 1000th 787

 Boeing delivered the 1000th 787 since program deliveries started in September 2011...almost 10 years ago. The aircraft is either ZE455 (LN 1057, JA 881J) for Japan Airlines or ZB971 (LN980, B-20EH) for Air Lease Corp leasing to China Southern Airlines as operator.  I am trying to find out which one has the 1000th Dreamliner to be delivered.  Both these airplanes had their delivery flight on 4/21 and 4/22 respectively and are both 787-9.  While this is an important milestone for the company and the 787 program itself, it is a bittersweet one given the trials and tribulations that the 787 has gone through since its inception.  During the boom years when the program was delivering up to 14 Dreamliners per month it had seemed the the worst days were behind it until the manufacturing issues and COVID-19 literally bought deliveries to a screeching halt.

Boeing has restarted 787 deliveries though it's a very tepid number (2 in March and 5 so far this month) and the issues that have grounded the airplanes are still not completely resolved nor are the market forces which have forced Boeing to consolidate the two production lines and dramatically reduce the 787 production rate.

The important question at this point is where does this program go from here.  It is my total expectation that Boeing will probably have a 787NG similar to the revamp of the classic 777 to the 777NG (777-200LR/7777-300ER) where there would aerodynamic improvements along with newer technology engines to further improve fuel burn. I also wouldn't be surprised to see a 787F amongst the offerings sometime this decade to supplant the 767-300ERF.  I don't anticipate that Boeing will launch this 787NG program for another 4 to 5 years though...not until there is a meaningful recovery in the widebody passenger aircraft market as well as more comfort amongst the flying public that the COVID-19 pandemic has subsided substantially enough that regular long range passenger travel recovers to pre-pandemic levels.

Meanwhile with the slowdown in 787 production along with the resumption of deliveries (albeit at a trickle), the 787 storage situation should be stabilized at the current levels of 90-96 airplanes just as long as there are no new issues that are revealed as the current inspections and re-work moves forward.

As always if there are any insiders with knowledge of the current status of the 787 program, please drop me an email at ureshs@aol.com.  I will try to update the blog and dmy spreadsheets as often as possible.

787 Spreadsheets

Is Delta switching from the 787-8 to the 787-9?

Yesterday I linked to a post on Saj Ahmad's Fleetbuzzeditorial.com blog site regarding the 787-9.
On the 9

Well interestingly enough a comment was left by someone saying that supposedly that Delta has decided to switch from the 787-8 to the 787-9 and to increase the order to triple digits (100 or more airframes?). The announcement is supposedly to be made later this year once Boeing has reallocated the 787-8 slots that Northwest had bought along with it in the merger. Now this is a rumor so let's not take it at face value but if there is someone out there who knows something and who can confirm it, let me know!

It is interesting because a lot of people know that Delta has said that it doesn't really need the 787-8 and there has been rumors that they would take up more 777-200LR. Well now in the light of Boeing gaining some more range from the 787-9 one wonders if this rumor may have some truth to it? In increasing the 787 order (they have 18 on order plus 50 options) to about 100+, Delta could replace the entire 767 and A330 fleet (about 100 aircraft) and add capacity for future growth.

Again, if any one has any further information on this rumor, please let me know!

787 Test Fleet exceeds 800 test flight hours

Boeing has amped up the flight test program for the 787 program in recent weeks. The program has been lagging in the the number of flight hours flown but Boeing has certainly stepped up the flight test in terms of the number of sorties flown as well as the number of hours flown during each sortie.

In the last one week (May 17th to May 23rd inclusive) the 787 test fleet amassed just a shade under 120 flight hours. During that week of flying ZA004 flew a 12 hour and 30 minute NAMS mission which is the longest 787 flight to date. Also during that time, the test flight achieved over 25% of the 3,100 flight test hours that the fleet will fly. The grand total now stands at 824 flight test hours spread over 265 sorties. They are one third of the way for the certification of the Roll Royce Trent 1000 powered aircraft.

Boeing will need to maintain this tempo over the next 6 months in order to achieve the certification of the airplane prior to first delivery in December.

Lastly, Saj Ahmad is making a case for the 787-9 to be a replacement for the 777-200 and 777-200ER aircraft and a direct competitor to the A350-900 now that the Boeing is close to finalizing the design with weight saving improvements in the aircraft to boost it's range while improving fuel burn. More over, Saj says that Boeing will identify more improvements in the 787-9 that will move it's range beyond 8,150 nm and may even be a replacement for the 777-200LR. Read on:

Fleetbuzzeditorial.com - On the 9

777NG possiblities

One of the most important decision facing Boeing is what to do to respond to the A350. Specifically, what will Boeing's answer be to the A350-900 and the A350-1000. The A350-800 is sized for the 787-9 market (both carry roughly the same number of passengers).

Airbus is targeting the 777-200 sized market with the A350-900 and the 777-300ER market with the A350-1000. Boeing is waiting to see what Airbus does with these two models before deciding on a future improvements on the 777 or an entirely new model in this class.

From my discussions it seems that Boeing is leaning towards a package of extensive improvements of the 777 line. These improvements may include weight saving measures throughout the aircraft, a new composite wing, an external re-profiling of the exterior lines and improvements in the GE90 using experienced gleaned from the GEnx program. The last proposed improvement is addressed by Saj Ahmad in an article he wrote:

Engines May Hold Key to Future 777

At the end of the day it does seem that Boeing is in the driver's seat because it can respond to the threat of the A350 with a lot of flexibility.

Does flying on an A380 mean lower fares for passengers?

When Airbus started marketing the A380, the argument made by some is that because you're packing so many people into a more efficient aircraft (for it's size) that air fares should go down. Well I wanted to to see if that was true. When Emirates started running it's A380 from Dubai to JFK direct it was was hard to compare air fares as there wasn't any competition on that non stop route (unsurprisingly Emirates reallocated that flight to the Dubai-Toronto route).

Now that Air France is on the verge of starting a Paris-New York flight on an A380, it does give this blogger an opportunity to comparison shop the airfares.

For my comparison I kept a few things static across the different carriers I looked at: Flying out December 15th and returning December 22nd. Air fare is the lowest for a single adult.

The comparison would be against AFoo7 (outbound to CDG) and AF006 (inbound to JFK). Both these flights are on the A380.

The total air fare for this flight (from the Air France Web Site) is $824.10.

I compared that against the following Air France flights between JFK and CDG:
AF007/AF006 (A380-800) - $824.10

AF023/AF022 (777-200ER) - $781.10

AF011/AF010 (777-200ER) - $886.10

AF009/AF008 (777-200ER) - $762.10

The following American Airlines Flight between JFK and CDG:

AA044/AA045 (767-300ER) - $679.00

The following Air France flights between Newark Liberty (EWR) and CDG:

AF019/AF018 (A330-200) - $885.10

The following Continental Airlines Flights between EWR and CDG:

CO056/CO057 (767-400ER) - $680.00

CO054/CO055 (757-200) - $680.00

Now a couple of things. This does not necessarily mean that the A380 flight is more expensive to operate on the New York - Paris route just that the air fares that the paying public pay is more expensive compared to most of the other flight options flown on older equipment. Indeed the A380 flights is the third most expensive in the New York-Paris market out of the 8 daily non stops. One explanation is that the other two Air France flights AF011 - 9:45PM and AF019 - 7PM are prime time flight as is AF007 - 7:10PM. CO54 leaves at 8:45PM also prime time while AA044 leaves at around 5:50PM a little before the prime time flight hours to Europe. Also I did not include Delta as they code share their Paris flights on Air France and the air fares are the same.

What about across the Pacific?

Ok to make sure that I wasn't seeing things, I did a similar comparison between Sydney, Australia and LAX. I compared the fares on QANTAS flight using the A380 (QF012/QF011) vs flight offered by QANTAS (on a 747-400) and it's competitor. I assumed in all cases that departure date from LAX on Nov. 25, 2009 and returning from Sydney on Dec 2, 2009. The airfare is for a single adult roundtrip on non stop service. Here are the results:

QANTAS Flights:

QF012/QF011 (A380-800) - $1913

QF108/QF107 (747-400) - $1404

NOTE: QF012 departs LAX at 10:30 PM and QF108 departs LAX at 11:45PM, a difference of only 1h hour and 15 minutes but a difference in price of over $500!!

VAustralia Flight:

VA002/VA001 (777-300ER) - $844.10

This flight departs LAX at 8:10PM.

United Flight:

UA839/UA840 (747-400) - $894.10

This flight departs LAX at 10:17PM

Delta Flight:

DL17/DL16 (777-200LR) - $2635

This flight departs LAX at 10:50PM

Of the five round trip flights analyzed here, the A380 flights is the 2nd most expensive with the Delta flights flown on a 777-200LR being very expensive (by over $700). But very interestingly is that a QANTAS flight that leave an hour and fifteen minutes later is over $500 less in air fare! If I were going to Australia and trying to save some dough well the choice is clear and I would take the QF108 flight (if I am so intent on flying the Qantas product).

In summary the hype of the A380 for the paying passenger really doesn't live up to the reality on the competitive routes. Qantas even beats it's own pricing on one of its most lucrative routes as does Air France when you compare the A380 fares vs the non A380 fares in the same market. The A380 doesn't deliver value to the flying public.