Boeing has had a terrible four years – the 737 Max grounding preceded the pandemic by 12 months and the airframer has lurched from crisis to crisis since – but there was welcome news this week with United Airlines’ record order for 100 787s, deliveries of which had halted over technical issues until recently. Added to a separate deal for 100 737s, the commitment illustrates United’s faith in the troubled manufacturer as well as continuing recovery in the international travel market.
“I have an immense amount of trust in Boeing,” remarked United chief executive Scott Kirby at a ceremony at the 787 manufacturing site in Charleston, South Carolina. The order is the biggest yet for the Dreamliner and boosts the 787 backlog by around a quarter to 512 aircraft. Boeing’s troubles are far from over, but United’s backing should give investors, customers and the industry generally confidence that one of its most important companies will be around for some time yet.
It also dispels worries that the surge in virtual meetings in 2020 and 2021 would lead to a permanent structural change in the international business travel market. While long-haul bookings are not quite back to 2019 levels, the trend continues towards full recovery. Prolonged lockdowns also led to pent-up demand for long-distance leisure and visiting-friends-and-family travel, which released in a big way in 2022. United clearly believes the outlook justifies its investment in 100 new widebodies.
While the United deal has provided Boeing with some breathing space for the next few years, one impact of its financial problems is that investment in new product development is largely on hold, something executives have as good as admitted. This could put Boeing at a distinct disadvantage with rival Airbus, which has come out of the blocks strongly post-Covid and is thinking seriously and out of the box about its next generation of products.
One of the projects off the table is the so-called New Mid-market Airplane or NMA. Boeing strongly touted – although never officially launched – this project, seen as a replacement for the 757 on longer, thin routes, in the latter years of the previous decade. United – a major 757 operator – plans to retire the out-of-production type and replace it with Max 10s and Airbus A321neos, but neither of these aircraft entirely matches the 757’s capabilities.
The variant that comes closest – the in-development A321XLR – carries roughly the same number of passengers as a 757 and delivers 4,700nm of range. The manufacturer this week flew its A321XLR test platform on its longest sortie yet – a more than 13h circuit from Toulouse that flew over the British Isles, Norway and southern Italy. Airbus – which is pitching the aircraft for thinner, long-haul routes, including on the transatlantic, aims to have it in service for 2024.
One new aircraft that may never see the light of day is the Boom Overture supersonic airliner. This is despite the business announcing this week audacious plans to develop its own engine after all the major propulsion providers said they had no interest in investing in the space. US-based Boom is partnering with Florida Turbine Technologies and GE Additive to develop the 35,000lb-thrust, medium-bypass powerplant, which it is calling Symphony.
Founder Blake Scholl is nothing if not ambitious. Next October will mark the 20th year of Concorde’s retirement, and he wants to restore faster than sound passenger flight before 2030. However, designing, certificating and producing a supersonic engine is a huge undertaking, on top of the challenge of doing the same thing with an unproven airframe. It will require billions of dollars of investment and is something no start-up has achieved. The odds are against the entrepreneur.
Finally, will we see single-pilot airliner cockpits any time soon? IATA director general Willie Walsh does not think so. In fact, he doubts whether the industry – and the travelling public – will ever be comfortable with just one crewmember on the flight deck, at least not in the next 25 years. He joked at a recent conference that he would be happy to fly on an aircraft operated by a single pilot, but only because he (a former Aer Lingus 737 captain) could “take over if necessary”.
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