All Nippon Airways Swaps 787 Orders
ANA Changes Orders To 787-8’s
Boeing Assessing Market Viability Of 787-3 Model
787-3 Still Being Offered
Launch customer for the 787 Dreamliner, All Nippon Airways has swapped its remaining orders for the 787-3 to the 787-8 model while Boeing confirms that it is evaluating the future of the third variant of the Dreamliner family.
Boeing’s orders and delivery page on its website now no longer lists any 787-3 orders.
European blogger Vero Venia first caught wind of the order change.
Image courtesy of Boeing
“As a result of ANA’s order conversion from the 787-3 to the 787-8, there are no longer any 787-3s in the backlog. The market viability of the 787-3 is currently being assessed,” Boeing’s 787 spokesperson Yvonne Leach tells me.
Boeing also says that the 787-3 is “still offerable” for sale should orders emerge.
All Nippon Airways had 28 firm orders for the type for use on high density, domestic routes to eventually replace some of its older 767, 777 and 747 jets.
Given All Nippon Airways’ order reshuffle, Boeing may be poised to drop the short range 787-3 variant as it looks to claw back costs that have risen as a result of delays on the wider program. The saving grace of course, is that All Nippon Airways did not materially reduce its 787 commitments.
By engineering this order change, the benefits for Boeing in the future certainly look better - with inevitable costs associated with R&D on the 787-9, a new final assembly line in North Charleston, anything that cuts capital expenditure will be a welcome move while it focuses its efforts on the current flight test program with a view to certifying the baseline 787-8 to allow first delivery in the fourth quarter this year.
68 comments January 8th, 2010
