Emirates wants an updated 777 offered. . . NOW
Emirates CEO Tim Clark has decided to beat the drum of wanting a new, upgraded and revised 777 and he would like Boeing to announce it pronto. Emirates has a very large fleet of 777 aircraft and likes to retire its aircraft from the fleet after about 12 years. They also have the A350-1000 on order (20 orders) and have behaved very cool towards Airbus over that aircraft’s delays and its inability to be a real game changer against the 777.
Boeing probably has done a fair bit of definition for the 777-8X/9X aircraft and its likely they’ve held substantial conversations with customers to get a better feel for what should be offered. I’m not entirely sure that what is offered is going to make Tim Clark happy as he generally wants more, More, MORE range in an aircraft. Sadly, most airlines don’t need ultra-long range capability nearly as much as they want excellent fuel efficiency and very low seat mile costs.
The 777-8X is likely to be somewhat satisfying to Emirates but I suspect the -9X won’t be quite what they want. Remember that Emirates wanted to see a 747-8i that had a few hundred more nautical miles range and Boeing wouldn’t give that to them.
It’s a tough position to be in at Boeing. Emirates could act as a launch customer for a very successful upgrade of the 777. On the other hand, Emirates will be the toughest critic possible of the aircraft all through development.
Boeing has quite a handful of things going on right now, too. The 787 program is getting better and better but still requires quite a bit of care and feeding in order to develop the 787-9 and 787-10 over the next few years. The 737-MAX program will keep a large portion of engineers busy for the next 5 to 6 years and that leaves very little engineering capability left over for the 777 development.
I think we’ll see some sort of firm definition get announced early next year and I think that an authorization to offer the aircraft will only come after Boeing sees customers signal their willingness (and even eagerness) to buy the aircraft from around the world and not just from the Middle East. That is going to take a while.
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