All Nippon Airways (ANA) has agreed to purchase 15 Boeing 787s with an option for an additional five airliners. This is important for Boeing as it went through January with zero aircraft orders and a dismal 2019 with an order book of negative 87 orders for the year. Yesterday, I posted plans by Alaska Airlines for 200 aircraft with the Boeing 737MAX the most likely choice.
The Order
The order will consist of 15 firm orders with five options and they will be powered by GE GEnx-18 engines. The current 787 fleet for ANA are powered by Rolls Royce Trent 1000 engines. Like many Boeing 787 operators with Trent 1000 engines, they have experienced engine issues involving the high-pressure compressor blades. Rolls Royce was supposed to have a fix by early 2020 but it looks more likely in early 2021.
Here is the order makeup:
- 11 787-10 models,
- 4 787-9 models and
- Options for 5 additional 787-9 models.
Yutaka Ito, Executive Vice President at ANA said: “These planes represent a significant step forward for ANA as we work to make our entire fleet even more eco-friendly and further reduce noise output”.
The new 787 aircraft are going to be replacements for older Boeing 777 aircraft.
Final Thoughts
The Boeing order book is so weak that now is the time for airlines to obtain massive discounts on aircraft orders. I had a question yesterday about Alaska leaning to a heavy 737 MAX order over Airbus. My response was that Alaska is a very well managed airline and they will negotiate a “bargain basement” price to obtain a significant order for the 737 MAX.
ANA is also a launch customer for the Boeing 777X model currently undergoing flight testing for airworthiness certification.
January 2020 was the first month that Boeing went without any orders since 1962. Boeing needs to jumpstart their order book and they will have to discount sales to get on the right side of empty.
