BahrainLad

BA 70J 744: 14F/70J/30W/185Y
BA 77W: 14F/56J/44W/183Y

Ie a 77W has 14 fewer J seats but 14 more W seats. I'd say with a bit of shuffling, that makes it an excellent 744 replacement.

And a A350-1000 is pretty much exactly the same length as a 77W, with a slightly narrower fuselage.

BOH

I am well aware of the A350. Which to date is certainly running late....but any problems pretty much pale into insignificance against the 787.

Lets see if the A350 is as late as the 787 was in EIS - or gets a 4 month grounding order within a year of first revenue flights shall we?

BahrainLad

Wasn't the 787 rolled out in 2007...and is basically still not flying?

PotNoodle

I expected this, with the rumours and BA's reluctance to order many 77W's (most they have are leased anyway).

I am a bit upset that BA don't try and maintain a strong balance between both aircraft manufactures, but I get less bothered when I hear about the cock ups with the 787 and the fact that Boeing is trying to make the 779-9X an ultra-long-haul aircraft for EK.

There is always the narrowbody replacement though, BA have swtiched manufactures once, they may do it again.

Noone cares about Europe, but it is good that there are so many British components on the aircraft.

travellingblade

I'm pleased about it as the A350 looks like it will be a great plane from a passenger perspective.

If my maths are right, BA need to replace 14 x long haul B767s, 52 x 747s and 46 x 772s (assuming they are keeping the 773s long term and not phasing them out). That is a total of 112 to phase out over the next 15 years or so.

With 6 x 773s, 12 A380s, 24 787s and now 18 A350s that makes 60 on order. That leaves 62 more needed, excluding any allowance for growth. We could yet see a large order for the 77X or some big top ups to the 787 and A350 orders.

BahrainLad

I believe with this order the BA longhaul fleet will end up as

A380 family
A350 family
787 family

all with RR Trent engines.

I doubt BA will ever buy another 777.

travellingblade

What is still unclear though is what is going to replace the 7 x short haul 767s. At the moment I can't see a clear replacement for them on order and they are surely not long for this world now despite the recent face lift. An A321 is not big enough to do the morning GLA/EDI/AMS/ARN runs. Not to mention places like LCA.

Unless some of the 787 orders are earmarked to be fitted out as all Y?

Flying Doctor

Intersting indeed.

I think that some of this is that the seats in the premium cabins will be retained but the offering in the Y cabin will reduce. The 77W is a good example of this where it is a mid J 747-400 except for Y where there are 50 less seats or something.

Since we now have the A350's I do wonder if the A380 options wil be exercised (likely BA will get a good deal for this as I can see EK getting into trouble as it has ordered a ridiculous number of A380's and some of the later orders rely on selling on the earlier deliveries) and LHR will always be constrained with slots. I doubt though that BA will want an A380 on much above the core trunk routes but 12 does not allow for many routes to be honest.

Also yes - I suspect that the 77W's will not be increased above 12 and they will be phased out fairly quickly - even the few that BA purchased. For an airline like BA unless you have a fleet of 20+ frames I don't think that it really works....

FD.

adrian1980uk

I thought that too but a quick google arround suggest the A350-1000 will carry arround 350 passengers in 3 class where the 747-400s carry up to 354 in 4 class so I'm not so sure there will be a major reduction if at all.

I assume the 18 options on the 787 will be the largest ones too (probably the new stretched version) so the reduction in capacity will be minimal. If they take up the options on the A380s they'll also have a sizable fleet of their flagship to increase capacity on the routes that warrant it.

Flying Doctor

Agreed - Also I suspect that F will be reduced overall so that in some of these planes BA will retain F but at 8-10 seats rather than the current 14. I somehow cannot quite believe that there will not be a few more A380's as they seem the natural progression for the Hi-J 747-400 routes and if you look at the routes there are a lot of routes with down time such as HKG and JNB which are rumoured to be amongst the first routes. Also SIN and GRU would be the same. SFO and LAS are on tighter turn arounds.....

FD.

BApilotinsider

Nice piece of kit. ^

http://www.a350xwb.com/

terminalfive

Great news!!

Swanhunter

Leaving aside the 747 UD, Airbus planes deliver a better cabin for the passenger - quieter, brighter and better proportioned. This is a good thing and if they could order some more to replace the rest of the 777 that would be great.

JimEddie

350 in manufacturer's description of 3 class vs 354 in 4 class does suggest a drop in capacity. If I read it right, the 747-400 is supposed to be 416 in 3 class which means that an A350-1000 has approx 16% lower passenger capacity.

Stez

^ Agreed, so far for the Y passenger, the modern Airbus planes seem to offer a better experience in general. Not looking forward to finding myself at the back of a 787.