So - as the 787 and A380 D-Day approaches I thought that I would start something about this.

We know that the 787-8 is a 767 replacement. The A380 is a 747-400 replacement (although of course the non NF 747-400's are all Mid-J not high-J).

What do we think will happen?

The 787 and 767 is easier - I would expect an almost like for like replacement of the 767's by the 787's as fast as the 787's can be delivered with except maybe a slight delay so the first 2-3 787's will be added to the fleet and then the 767 fleet will deplete by 1 for every 787 airframe thereafter. This will of course limit any new routings for the 787 for a bit but I suspect that BA is really keen to get rid of the 767's, even though they have had a bit of a 'tart -up' recently.

The A380 is more tricky. There are 3 to be delivered by the end of 2013 and then there are 2 more 777-300's with 4 more of these in 2013. I suspect that nothing will be retired straight away until the A380 is up and running on the HKG route in November. Then I suspect that 1 747-400 will be retired for A380 number 3 and then another one for the 2 777-300's. In 2014 I suspect that there will be 3 747-400's retired in place of the 4 777-300's and with the (I believe 5 A380's due in 2014) there will be 4 747-400's retired. This means that 9 747-400's will go by this stage. Whilst I suspect that most will be the Mid-J non NF planes I suspect that we might see the odd Hi-J go - maybe a 7 Mid-J 2 Hi-J split or something like that. I suspect that by 2015 the idea is that all the Mid-J non NF planes have left the fleet - replaced in effect by 6 777-300's and 12 A380's by the end of 2015.

Thoughts? Worth a good bit of speculation.....

FD.