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Boeing to “tweak” 777-8 for Qantas non stop European flights
December 8th 2017
Qantas Airways group CEO, Alan Joyce, issued one of the greatest challenges in modern aviation to Airbus and Boeing a few weeks ago - developing an airliner capable of performing nonstop flights from Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne to Europe. Read More » Joyce called it the “last frontier in challenging the distance that has always been a problem for the Australian market”.
This week Boeing said it would “tweak” the B777-8, the smallest member of the B777X programme, to meet Qantas’ range and payload requirements.
In a call with reporters on Tuesday, Boeing vice president and B777X chief project engineer, Michael Teal, said today’s 777-8 design “falls short of all their desires, but exceeds many of their desires,” and added the OEM was “looking at what knobs we can twist”.
Qantas’ planned Sydney-London direct route would cover 9,200 nautical miles (nm). Boeing’s website lists the -8X as having a maximum range of 8,700nms in a typical three-class configuration of 350-375 seats. The B777X programme promises a 20% seat-mile cost reduction vis-à-vis the B777-300ER and 12% compared with Airbus’ competing A350-1000.
In Tuesday’s conference call, Boeing vice president and general manager of the B777X programme, Eric Lindblad, said the U.S. manufacturer was not concerned about relatively slow sales. Lindblad said the 340 orders placed to date showed airlines had “strong confidence” in the B777X.
“It’s interesting, when you compare where we were at with the 777-300ER at the same reference point in development of that aircraft, the number of orders for the -300ER were 69. I think actually there is a lot of confidence in the 777X,” he said.
All but one of the seven B777X customers is an airline from either the Asia-Pacific or the Middle East. All Nippon Airways (ANA) has 20 on order, Cathay Pacific Airways 21; launch customer Emirates Airline a whopping 150; Etihad Airways 25 and Qatar Airways 60. Another 34 and 30 of the type have been ordered by Lufthansa and an unidentified carrier, respectively.
Boeing planned to commence final assembly of the B777X next year, with a first flight anticipated in 2019 and first delivery scheduled for 2020.
