Originally Posted by
Sheikh Yerbooty
Quite a bit of uninformed rubbish being offered as the truth here, which I shall attempt to rectify.
Some people have also been taking for granted the marketing gossip emanating from an aircraft manufacturer, namely that a B747-8i will burn less fuel per seat than an A380. But that is only true if you use the Boeing standard seating for the 747 and the Airbus standard seating for the A380. Since those two standards are not the same, it's comparing apples to oranges. The truth is, as should be expected given the generational gaps between the products, is that an A380 will burn less fuel per seat than a 747-8i with an equivalent seating standard.
Some good information in your post, but also some of the rubbish that you were trying to clear up.
The 747-8 has a brand new, super-critical wing, and newer engines, than the 380. LH, which is so far, the only carrier to operate both the 380 and 747-8I, sees real world usage difference of about .1 or .2 liters per 100km. Boeing is looking to drop that another 1.8% or more with the soon to be certified PIP.
Fuel efficiency is definitely part of what makes a frame attractive, and these days, it has become a much larger percentage of that evaluation, however it is only part of what determines if the airframe is successful for a given mission. People seem to overlook that fairly often.
Originally Posted by
Sheikh Yerbooty
As for the future of the 747, the order book speaks its own clear language. There are less than 60 unfulfilled orders, 45 or so are freighters. Boeing are currently building white tailed freighters and flying them directly to the desert, and has reduced output twice recently and are now down to 1,75 aircraft per month. There are no signs of any major new order, their best hope is probably that Air China or Korean Air might order 10 more in total between them. Then the curtain will fall over the production of passenger airline 747s, but they will continue to grace the skies for many decades to come.
Again, some very bad information. Boeing has not built a single white-tailed 747-8, and have not flown any new builds "directly to the desert". It is true that earlier this year, customers deferred the delivery schedule of some of their frames, so 3 8Fs were flown out and stored for a bit, however all of those have since been flown back and delivered (or are scheduled for delivery). Production has been scaled back twice, but it currently stands at 1.5/month, and Boeing themselves has said that they expect to maintain that level through 2015, but that they evaluate it from month to month.
There are 2 747-8s that do not currently have customers, but both of those were built for a customer that did not take them up for one reason or another. One of those was one of the early build 8Fs that Atlas refused. It has undergone refurbishment and looks to be in preparation to be part of an order. The other one is an 8I that was LH's, but Boeing requested that they be able to use it to certify all of the elements that are part of this upcoming PIP.
At the time, LH decided to go ahead and cancel that frame, leaving them with 19, but just recently it appears that the frame has once again been re-assigned to LH as a customer, so it is a possibility that they will still take the frame, or may even place a top up order of some number.
Regarding the backlog, as of September, it was 23 8Is and 28 8Fs. Since then, 3 freighters have been delivered, but 5 8Is have been ordered, so the backlog currently stands at 28 8I and 25 8F.
There are existing MoUs from CA of 2 8Is, UN for 4 8Is, and an unidentified customer for 4 8Is.
Regarding 8Fs, there have been orders for 5 this year already, and there appears to be another CX order coming for at least 4 frames. The question many are asking now is if the long rumored 8I order for them will come to fruition as well.