US manufacturer close to launching 747 Advanced and 737-900X and is set to save 747-400 freighter
Boeing is closing on launch decisions on two new airliner derivatives within the next few months amid mounting signs that sufficient launch customers are now lined up for both the 747 Advanced and long-awaited 737-900X.
“We have a team working on [747] Advanced and they are hugging our customers to sell them the business case,” says Boeing chairman Lew Platt. “The team is really enthused. The reception [in the market] has been very good. The business case is not as tough as the 787 or [Airbus] A380. I fully expect [a decision] in the next few months and maybe as early as the end of this month.”
Boeing vice-president sales Scott Carson adds that customer interest is also shifting in favour of the passenger variant, rather than the freighter as previously seen. “Much of the early interest was in the freighter, but now the majority of the interest is among airlines,” he says. The potential 747 Advanced customers include some airlines that have already ordered the A380 as well as some that want to “move up in scale without taking on the risk of the A380”, he adds.
In addition to growing signs of launch customers for the Advanced, Boeing is seeing equally important indications of renewed interest in the current 747-400, particularly the freighter. As a result the company says it will not call a halt to the programme in the near term as previously threatened.
Boeing Commercial Airplanes president Alan Mulally says: “We thought we might announce the conclusion of production at the end of this year and that’s not going to be the case because the demand for the 747-400 is increasing. We don’t anticipate any announcement this year on stopping the 747 and that gives us another option because it gives us time to bridge to the 747 Advanced,” says Mulally, who adds that entry into service would be either late 2008 or early 2009.
Boeing also hopes to formally launch the higher-capacity 737-900X variant by the end of August, and plans to standardise all production of the largest member of the family on this variant pending agreement with -900 operators.
Carson says “two customers have accepted proposals for the aircraft and we are in the process of taking these through to definitive agreements to allow us to make a formal launch later this summer”. The two airlines are Indonesia-based Lion Air and Indian low-fare start-up SpiceJet, which in February ordered 10 Boeing 737-800s.
Source: Flight International
