Boeing Books 18 new 787 orders in January, Deferred Production Down to $22.967bn

So two pieces of good news today.

First Boeing booked 18 new orders for the 787 in January. There was two orders made on January 9 each for 4 GE powered 787-9 and 787-10 leading me to believe that it was one customer who ordered these 8 Dreamliners.  Total speculation on my part but it was Malaysia Airlines that has signed an LoI for 8 Dreamliners.  It maybe that carrier that has firmed these 8 787s orders.

There was a separate order for 10 787-9 made on January 30th.  In all cases the customer remains unidentified but it's great to see a new order for the 787-10.

Thus far Boeing has booked 444 x 787-8, 804 x  787-9, and 173 x 787-10 for a total of 1,421 787s.

Lastly, Boeing's 10K showed the deferred production cost dipping below $23bn to $22.967bn.  This is a decrease of  $584mm from the third quarter.  With Boeing now producing at 14/month I expect subsequent quarters to show an even larger amounts of decrease in the deferred production balance.

As always please bookmark the link to my 787 spreadsheets as I make every effort to keep them continuously updated.

787 Spreadsheets

Tracking 787 LoI, MoU and Options

Boeing continues to grow the 787 order book though it does appear that the 787 book-to-bill for 2017 will be over one again, the company did make good progress with orders this year particularly in the second half which will set them nicely for 2018.

These un-firmed orders (letter of intents or memorandum of understanding) orders aren't official until the detailed contract with customers are negotiated and signed.  These unbooked orders along with options represents a significant chunk of the firm order book if and when they are finalized.

I'm attempting to quantify the MoUs, LoIs, and Options for the 787 and have started putting together a table which is far from complete.

Customer	Model	Unfirmed Ordered (LoI or MoU)	Options (Any Model)	Options - 787-8	Options - 787-9	Options - 787-10	Total
American Airlines			58				58
Eva Air	787-10					6	6
Emirates	787-10	40	60				100
Garuda Indonesia	787-9	30					30
Malaysia Airlines		8					8
QANTAS			45				45
Turkish Airlines	787-9	20			20		40
United Airlines			50				50
Virgin Atlantic Airlines	787-9				4		4
WestJet	787-9				10		10
Total		98	213	0	34	6	351

If there is any information that is missing, please shoot me a message and I'll add it to the table.  You can also view this table as part of the 787 Spreadsheets that I maintain.

EgyptAir to buy 6 x 787-9s

Word from different sources is that EgyptAir and Boeing have come to an agreement for the Middle Eastern carrier to buy 6 787-9s.  The official order announcement could be made this week.  In addition the carrier is buying the A320NEO from Airbus thus splitting their fleet renewal order between the major manufacturers.  It is unknown whether this order is firm or an MoU.

The order by EgyptAir continues a string of wins for the 787 program of late after getting the node from Malaysia Air (8 x 787-9) and Turkish Airlines (40 x 787-9).  If these orders are finalized prior to year end then Boeing would have booked 132 net orders for the 787 assuming no other orders or cancellations.  I'm still waiting for Garuda Indonesia's 787-9 order to be finalized.

Boeing Achieves 600th 787 Delivery

On September 26th, Boeing delivered the 600th Dreamliner coming exactly 6 years and 1 day after the first 787 was delivered to ANA (a 787-8) on September 25th, 2011.  As far as I can ascertain, the 600th aircraft was also a 787-8 for British Airways which is ZA458 (LN 609, G-ZBJI).  There wasn't any announcement or celebration recognizing this milestone but to deliver 600 airplane in 6 years is quite notable for a widebody aircraft program and especially so for the 787 which had so much trouble in the early years.

Orders seems to be picking up as mentioned in previous posts with Turkish Airlines and Malaysia's order for the 787.  There is still a chance that Dubai-based Emirates can announce a 787 order at November's Dubai Air Show and I also received word that EgyptAir will be ordering the 787 (no word on numbers or version).  EgyptAir's possible order is intriguing as they have 10 A330 series aircraft that would be ready for renewal.  The 777-300ERs are fairly new but they just retired the 777-200ER so they could possibly use the 787-10 and 787-9 to replace the 777-200ER and A330 (both -200 and -300).  If an order from EgyptAir is close I wouldn't be surprised to see it drop at Dubai as well.

I'm still waiting to hear about Garuda Indonesia's 30 x 787-9 order to be finalized.

Lastly, Boeing is celebrating the 1 millionth passenger flight of the 787.  They released a video commemorating this feat below:

787 Landing Gear Test and new 787 order coming soon?

Image Courtesy of Boeing

Dreamliner 1 started landing gear tests 3 days ago (August 9th). This is a major milestone confirming that the electrical, hydraulics and avionics systems are working together. Initially each gear (left main, right main and nose) were tested individually and then all were tested together. The gear swing tests is top replicate how the landing gear would work as if in actual flight. In order to do this, Boeing jacked the airplane off its landing gear. These tests will continue for the next few days presumably also testing the opening and closing of the landing gear doors as well.

Jon Ostrower is also reporting that Boeing will have a video available of the gear tests available soon. I'll try to post it here (once I've figured out how to do that)!

UPDATE: The video and more pics of the gear swing is here. Boeing even got some amazing footage inside the wheel well as the gear is retracted into it.

New 787 Customer?

In other 787 news, I learned from multiple sources that Boeing will reveal a buyer of 23 787-8s as early as next month. Boeing booked a 23 order from an unidentified customer back in January of this year. Since this order was booked, speculation has been rampant on the web that it must be a current customer who has already purchased the 787 and has a large number of options that they can exercised. Air Canada (who has 23 unexercised 787 options) became the prime suspect. The buyer was not revealed at Farnborough (I guess they didn't want to compete with all the other news coming out of the air show) but I have since learned that this order may be for a new 787 operator. I've also learned from sources that the customer is NOT a North American or European customer. One source told me that it probably is a company that is not subject to regulatory fillings where large material purchases such as 23 787 would have to be disclosed.

So who can it be? Well it can be an Asian, Middle Eastern or South American customer in my opinion. Those are the only regions of the world that have airlines that don't have to reveal this purchase in regulatory filings in addition to being able to afford to buy a large number of widebody aircraft and who has not previously purchased the 787. From these regions we could probably look at airlines like Thai, TAM, Emirates, Garuda Indonesia, Malaysian or even Iraq Airways (with the help of US govt. loans or the $49 bn surplus the Iraqi govt. has). One source speculated to me that TAM is going to take delivery of 4 777-300ERs in September and wouldn't the delivery ceremony make a great opportunity to announce a TAM order for the 787. This is a company that has already bought 12 A350-800, 10 A350-900 and 15 A330-200. The 787-8 would be a great size for TAM for which Airbus' only competitor in the 787-8 size category is the A330-200 (the A350-800 competes with the 787-9 and the A350-900 would compete with the 777-200ER and the proposed 787-10) and the 767-300ERs that TAM recently leased out.