Boeing 747-8 news

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RoMax
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Re: Boeing 787 and 748 news

Post by RoMax »

The first delivery of the 748i to Lufthansa tomorrow is cancelled until furter notice... The reason is currently unknown but rumours say that unexperienced Boeing workers heavilly damaged/scratched the LH specific interior while removing it to "lay the final cables" (a part of the interior had to be removed for that)... :roll:

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RoMax
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Re: Boeing 787 and 748 news

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And for the first time in about 10 years, Boeing delivers another 747 to Lufthansa. First 748i for commercial service was delivered to Lufthansa today! :D

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Re: Boeing 787 and 748 news

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MR_Boeing wrote:And for the first time in about 10 years, Boeing delivers another 747 to Lufthansa. First 748i for commercial service was delivered to Lufthansa today! :D
Lufthansa has revealed that it will use new 747-8Is on flights to Bangalore, New Delhi, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington.

Lufthansa's first B747I will enter service on its Frankfurt-Washington route from June 1, on a six times weekly basis.

More: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=47304
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RoMax
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Re: Boeing 787 and 748 news

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Philippine Airlines is about to buy 100 new aircraft over the comming five years. PAL once was a quite big airline in Asia before it downsized dramaticly in/after 1997. But they seem to plan a revival, including restarting routes to Europe (London, Paris, Rome, Frankfurt,...) and several other new routes (New York, Chicago,...) .

The current fleet exists of 37 aircraft of which only 7 Boeing aircraft (777 (2 +4 on order) and 747 (5) ). The rest are Airbus aircraft ( A319, A320, A333 and A343). But apparently PAL wants to change this, the new president of PAL (Ramon Ang) said they want to do more business with Boeing.
Airbus will represent the whole narrowbody fleet (about 75% of the fleet), while Boeing will represent the long haul division of the airline.

According to some Philippine sources the new flag ship of PAL will become the 748i, replacing the current 744. Ramon Ang said the A380 can only use two airports in the Philippines (Manila and Clark), the 748i can serve 5 of them. He also pointed out that the A380 is too big for PAL's business. The airline operates a business/economy configuration resulting in 644 seats for the A380 (which is to much according to Ang), the 748i would have 550 seats.

It is said that the airline is looking at 12 Boeing 787's, 4 Boeing 747-8i's and another 4 Boeing 777-300ER's. This would result in a long haul fleet (at the end of the decade) existing of 12 787's, 4 747's and 10 777's.

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Re: Boeing 787 and 748 news

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Re: Boeing 787 and 748 news

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Lufthansa has taken delivery of their 2nd Boeing 747-8I over the weekend.
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Re: Boeing 787 and 748 news

Post by bruteboeing »

Anyone knows any "reason" why the 747-8i isn't that much of a seller ? I've noticed the cargo is doing quite ok but the passenger version isn't selling that much ... no demand or not living up to expectations ??
Flown on: Boeing: 737 - 757 - 767- 777 | Avro: RJ85 RJ100 | MD-11 | L1011 | CRJ900 | Fokker 70 | Saab 2000

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Re: Boeing 787 and 748 news

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bruteboeing wrote:Anyone knows any "reason" why the 747-8i isn't that much of a seller ? I've noticed the cargo is doing quite ok but the passenger version isn't selling that much ... no demand or not living up to expectations ??
It's a small market, the 748 was probably too late to the game. Most of any potential 747-8i customers were already committed to the A380.

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Re: Boeing 787 and 748 news

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bruteboeing wrote:Anyone knows any "reason" why the 747-8i isn't that much of a seller ? I've noticed the cargo is doing quite ok but the passenger version isn't selling that much ... no demand or not living up to expectations ??
Maybe both, but I guess it's mostly because Boeing isn't really making an effort to sell them.
Boeing's idea is to fly more direct routes iso hub to hub. So they market smaller planes with more range but less seating more.

For cargo it has the advantage of being the only freighter with nose load and high pay-load capacity now in production.

And not to forget there is a more suitable plane for hub to hub operations; the A380.
Though in typical config it takes 525 passengers this can be upped to 853 passengers.

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Re: Boeing 787 and 748 news

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andorra-airport wrote: It's a small market, the 748 was probably too late to the game. Most of any potential 747-8i customers were already committed to the A380.
Being committed to the A380 as such is not the biggest problem, after all Lufthansa, Korean Air and Transaero (will) have them both.

But for many airlines the 77W/A350-1000 is enough to fill the gap between the smaller long haul jets and the bigger A380 (if they need these after all). The 748i is serving a very small niche market (the 744 wasn't back in those days) and that can appeal just a few airlines.

This is also one of the reasons why Boeing is not sure about the right capacity for the 777-9X yet, as this will be slightly bigger as the 77W and as a result it may be even worse for 748i sales (just Lufthansa (20), Arik Air (2), Korean Air (5) and Air China (5) already committed to it, Transaero has a standing MoU).

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Re: Boeing 787 and 748 news

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Exactly!
The biggest competition for the 747 has not been the A380, but Boeing's own 777-300ER.

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Re: Boeing 787 and 748 news

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Problems between Boeing and the Chinese CAAC doesn't seem to be resolved fast. Hainan now states they don't expect their 787's before the second quarter of 2013. China Southern faces simular delays.

Besides that HNA Group's chairman stated they are thinking about changing their 787 order (partly) to a 748i order, on the other hand they are in talks with Airbus to cancel the order for 10 A380's.
It seems they were too optimistic with ordering the A380 and now believe the smaller 748i will fit.

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Re: Boeing 787 and 748 news

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Airbus is getting seriously frustrated by Boeing's ads comparing the 737MAX with the A320neo and the 748 with the A380:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-2 ... rpens.html
Airbus says Boeing is selling big lies to the airline customers about their newest aircraft programs. But on the other hand how can Airbus claim these things are untrue? As long as there aren't real life operational results of the 737MAX and A320neo, you can't claim with 100% certainty that one will be better than the other.

So really nothing special, Boeing does this and Airbus does this. But this seems to be slightly below the belt:
Airbus was concerned that some “less sophisticated airlines” might be swayed by Boeing’s claims and be less inclined to talk to Airbus, Leahy said. The sales chief said he didn’t know what Airbus will do if Boeing ignores its ads.
“We’ll take one step at a time,” he said.
You can say this of small airlines that order 5-10 new aircraft and have no real clue about what they are doing, but these are not going to make the difference and as if airlines like United, Southwest, GOL, Virgin Australia, SilkAir (with Singapore Airlines as parentcompany), ... are "less sophisticated airlines" that didn't look at the A320neo before placing 737MAX orders worth billions of dollars...?

Little frustration about Boeing taking the lead position (in orders, but mainly in deliveries) after so many years again?

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Re: Boeing 787 and 748 news

Post by smokejumper »

flightlover wrote:
bruteboeing wrote:Anyone knows any "reason" why the 747-8i isn't that much of a seller ? I've noticed the cargo is doing quite ok but the passenger version isn't selling that much ... no demand or not living up to expectations ??
Maybe both, but I guess it's mostly because Boeing isn't really making an effort to sell them.
Boeing's idea is to fly more direct routes iso hub to hub. So they market smaller planes with more range but less seating more.

For cargo it has the advantage of being the only freighter with nose load and high pay-load capacity now in production.

And not to forget there is a more suitable plane for hub to hub operations; the A380.
Though in typical config it takes 525 passengers this can be upped to 853 passengers.
As someone once said (regarding the 747), "If yo0u can fill it, it will make you money; if you can't, it will eat your lunch!"

There are only so many city pairs that can fill a 525+ passenger plane with the regularity to keep 300+ very large aircraft filled. Boeing claims that the fuel burn per trip of the 747-8 is significantly less than the A-380 (to be expected as it is smaller with less thrust) and it is easier to fill 460 seats than 525. Both planes are handicapped by this; the real market is for the A-350, B-777 and, B-787.

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Re: Boeing 787 and 748 news

Post by superfly »

Traveled BA business class from LHR to HKG on B747 earlier this year and must say I wasn't very impressed with the seat width of their fishbone structure. Felt like a cramped coccoon.

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Re: Boeing 787 and 748 news

Post by Homo Aeroportus »

Having received their fourth 748, LH has started flying LAX with it as from last week.

And that suits me very well so I'll fly back through FRA in January.
I guess the interior will be a major improvement on their 744s. Last time I flew one of these LH 744 to DXB, it reminded me of the SN "Tram 15" to JFK, with the same yellowish rattling plastic furniture...

Looking forward to flying this 748i for the first time.

H.A.

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Re: Boeing 787 and 748 news

Post by andorra-airport »

Homo Aeroportus wrote: it reminded me of the SN "Tram 15" to JFK
Off-topic, but there is a nice video online about "Tram 15" : http://www.sonuma.be/archive/le-tram-15 ... atlantique

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Re: Boeing 787 and 748 news

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Does anybody have an idea when we can expect the first 748f in BRU?
Thomas

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Re: Boeing 787 and 748 news

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Lufthansa has agreed with Boeing to postpone the delivery of one of its B747-8s on order by two years to 2014. The aircraft involved (N6067U, MSN 37826) had already first flown in April 2011 as a testbed for Boeing and will now continue to be used by the aircraft manufacturer for tail fuel testing.

Source: ch-aviation
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Re: Boeing 787 and 748 news

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sn26567 wrote:Lufthansa has agreed with Boeing to postpone the delivery of one of its B747-8s on order by two years to 2014. The aircraft involved (N6067U, MSN 37826) had already first flown in April 2011 as a testbed for Boeing and will now continue to be used by the aircraft manufacturer for tail fuel testing.

Source: ch-aviation
Actually it's cancelled (see one of my previous posts). But with the expectation they order a new one later on. Both for Boeing and LH it's an elegant solution. Boeing has the test aircraft they need and Lufthansa doesn't have to take one of the older 748i's that they didn't really want either.

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