Originally Posted by
dmurphynj
Aren't a bunch of the "domestic" birds weight restricted? I thought there was something about those very early birds that had some additional restrictions.
Coming from the CO side of the house, the 777's there were all unified, so I'm just not as familiar with the pmUA bird history as maybe I should be.
But my point is basically that - as these frames are approaching age-out, maybe some bargain-basement 77W's would make sense. The additional cargo lift to/from Hawaii may change the economics. I believe the 77W carries 6 more LD3 containers than a 772; that's not insignificant. I understand the Hawaii-mainland market to be pretty profitable. 77W's would also stretch the range to the east coast - EWR-IAD could do the HNL/OGG runs on a 77W; they can't on the 77M/77G.
Total armchair quarterbacking here but replacing these with 77W's makes sense to my feeble brain. It's a good thing United doesn't give me their checkbook ;-)
Your assumption is that Boeing is interested in selling “bargain basement” 77Ws to UA. I don’t know that that’s a given. By the time these deliveries start in force, I would assume Boeing fully expects to be delivering 777-9s. In the meantime, Boeing has enough 777Fs on order to keep the line moving, and increasing output isn’t guaranteed to be simple given that it’s likely that those making equipment and furnishings specific to passenger 777-300ERs are wrapping up production right now. Restarting said production isn’t necessarily cheap, and they’re not going to do so just to sell at bargain basement prices.
They’re also not likely to do so if it compromises the pricing power they have on the 787 line or the 777X line. If Boeing was facing a clear gap in sales between the wind-down of existing generation 777s and the startup of 777X deliveries, then they might be more inclined to do something to plug that gap. But as it is right now, they could build 3 777Fs per month until the expected start of 777-9 deliveries, and really, that’s probably plenty for a plane of that size, given the overall state of widebody sales over the past few years.