coolfish1103

They only have 4 789, so likely it will only be at SEA (and boost it back to 2 daily). The rest will be 78J.

BNE should be one of the first destinations cause you really only need 1 plane to cycle during non peak.

hayzel7773

A very interesting line from their press release.

EVA Takes Its First Boeing 787 Dreamliner Into the Sky - EVA Air | Global

abovethepacific

If they are going to be serving these long haul destinations with the 787 wouldn't they want PE installed?

east_west

At 7100nm, it can fly pretty much anywhere in the world from TPE except Florida and South/Central America.
Great Circle Mapper

coolfish1103

It's just a gimmick. Not going to happen with just 4 787-9. 2 destinations max at any given time.

hayzel7773

I was watching an interview media had with Chairman Lin during the ceremony, where everyone was asking what happened to PE. Basically, his reply was that the aircraft's design is a straight model of the A330s in the fleet. They will be sending the A332s away in the next year and the 789 is a replacement of the A332s. The 78X/J will become the A333 replacement/growth. Meanwhile, EVP Albert Liao said that the 78X/J will free up A321s, which will allow them to open up new routes in Asia. The airline is also looking at 77W replacements for the coming decade(BR likes young fleet). They are also reducing Mainland China service as LF drop and yield is dwindling due to the current climate.

B-16703, the current Sanrio Characters aircraft B-16703 will be sent away at the end of 2019 when the lease is up. They have already started end-of-lease arrangements with the lessor. Additionally, barring any issues, B-16717 will be home next August from Air NZ. The last 777s BR has ordered(two 77Fs) will be coming soon, one at the end of this year and the other the middle of next year. Once those two come in, BR will no longer have any 777 on order.

All 747s Freighters(non-converted) have found homes after retirement. Currently, there are only 2 left in the fleet. Upon their retirement in 2019, they will be transferred to Atlas Air. Once they depart, BR will officially have no 747s, the first aircraft that they started intercontinental service with.

someone0000

It'll also help drive up yield in RL as premium cabin demand won't be splintered between those who can afford RL and those who are more cost-conscious and end up booking PE.

It's also a general rule of thumb that for the flight times they're covering with the 787s (mainly <9 hours with the exception of a handful of Europe/America routes) the willingness for customers to pay for premium cabins is much lower.

username

So, I guess they are not looking at thinner North American routes such as BOS?

username

So, I guess they are not looking at thinner North American routes such as BOS if the 789s are going to be used for regional?

Also interesting that the 78J will replace the A321?

I guess BR started TPE-BKK-VIE with the 767, right? I guess one can argue Europe is not a different continent

hayzel7773

BR mgmt. has stated many times this year they are cooling the North America route expansion for the next 1-2 years and allowing existing ones to "mature".

The whole business model BR is heavily reliant upon is pax+cargo(more so than most airlines). This is evident in their fleet planning, where they have shrunk a previously expansive cargo fleet of 10+ airplanes to a mere 5, installed container-capable cargo bays on the A321s, and cut cargo routes as they increased pax freq. With the reduced cargo fleet, they will prioritize longhaul cargo ops to places like ATL, DFW etc. over intra-Asia ops, such as runs to BKK, HKG etc. The 78J can also carry additional cargo on cargo-heavy A321(but currently unable to use other aircraft as the CASM does not make it viable) routes such as HKD, certain KIX, TYO(by the manner they've been handling the NRT Gudetama with swaps, we could see Gudetama leave NRT) etc., which in turns allows BR to shift it's A321s onto routes such as Penang, Yangon(possibly), and Matsuyama(EVP Liao said they are eager to start this). 78J can also be the cargo horse for it's intra-Asia operations while carrying pax, a double win for BR's model and allowing the 77F to fly more long-haul.

The 789/J cargo capacity and range(less-so on the 78J but around 5000nm will still comfortably make it to Oceania and some parts of Europe) is a win for BR for places like BNE, longer Asian routes, and Europe. Europe and Oceania services, with the exception of LHR and CDG, all started out as A332s(or 767s, the plane the A332 replaced). When they started retiring all the A332s(high fuel burn) from the fleet, the 77W was brought in as a replacement because the A333 was a terrible fit(need to block seats, no cargo, no crew rest). Now that the 78J and 789 come online, they can shift them onto these routes and free up the 77W, which is not making much money thanks to the bleeding PE and J cabins(despite the heavy cargo every flight). The 78J can easily make it to Europe from BKK and to Oceania with cargo+pax at a lower CASM than A332s or 77Ws.

It's evident BR has envisioned long-haul flights for the 789 or they would not have installed crew rests(very costly).

Also something of note, according to BR's CSR report for 2017, in which they included a 787-10 in their fleet plan and oil usage slide, they will be using these aircraft on mid-haul flights(BR's definition of medium-haul is intra-Asia+Oceania+BKK-Europe within 6000nm flight plan distance). The 787-10 has a significantly lower fuel burn compared to the A321/A332/A333 in their configuration on routes they plan to use it(though which routes is not specified).

Just a warning but BR mgmt. likes to throw statements out there and never follow up/through on it.

username

Thank you. So much to learn... It seems over the years, the Cargo/Passenger and Marine/Air dynamics change within EVA and within Evergreen? I wonder how decisions are made. Cargo seemed to be out of favor for a while but it definitely makes sense mixing them.

Does that mean IAD service is probably not going to happen any time soon? Are they waiting for UA to shift more flights from EWR to IAD

It seems even in the early days, the MD-11s were kind of an uncertain fleet decision. Then of course there was the 777 LR thing that never happened. So, I guess we will believe it when we see it.

hayzel7773

The Evergreen group has greatly evolved from what it has started out as, and this is a good thing. It shows in their financials. BR has transitioned to it's own independent cargo services while marine focuses on it's own things instead of being complements like they started out as, mainly packages, electronics, pharmaceuticals(started in '14), and other non-perishable goods that it can easily carry on belly pallets while the other items are referred to marine. BR even has it's own pharmaceutical cargo division in the company.

BR began moving away from dedicated air freight when there was a massive cargo slowdown. For years after 2008, air cargo was bleeding money terribly, so they sent the MD-11s off, stopped doing 747 conversions, and started cutting down the fleet. Then they ordered the 77F, stated there would be a one-for-one replacement, because it had slightly greater cargo capacity at a significantly lower cost(no more pax 747 so why keep a dedicated 747 pilot group) compared to their current freighter fleet, cut tons of cargo service(Europe service completely gone) and replaced it with belly cargo(SFO is a prime example, when they increased to 3x daily, cargo service was completely cut except when needed but the SFO bellies became terrifyingly full every flight, they sold off the parking bay back to the airport but kept the cargo warehouse). Nowadays, the cargo market is volatile. It is very up-and-down and BR has found that 5 is the most they can do while remaining profitable(rev and yield have been going up and down like crazy the last few quarters).

SZX is a prime candidate for the 78J. High J loads, low Y loads, and a full belly there and back.

IAD was always a long shot. Back in 2015-2016, BR was leaking to places like Anna.aero about potential services to MXP, BOS, IAD, BCN, MAD etc., all of which were never true.

BR's strategy in Europe is to just sell to the few main points. They've wanted Frankfurt for awhile, but air rights restrict them. They'll stick to what makes money for them, which is mainly BKK-Europe. They've really conquered that market and it makes lots of money for them. They basically treat TPE-BKK and BKK-Europe as two different markets.

gengar

As I've mentioned previously in this thread, the 78J should easily beat the A321 on CASM even on relatively short routes like Taipei-Tokyo. The issue is the other side of the equation, e.g., whether BR can fill all the seats.

It'll be interesting to see if BR has to payload-restrict at all on the European routes, especially during winter.

bzcat

On intra-asia routes, BR often flies mixed A333 or 77W and A321 multiple daily services to the same destination. So BR can rationalize some frequencies to a single 787-10, especially if it still lines up with their long haul banks from North America. This is what they mean when they say 787 is "replacing" A321. It's really replacing A333 and the extra capacity of 787-10 will allow them to pare back A321 flying to the same destinations.

BR's challenge at KHH is related to their TPE hub strategy. KHH is point to point and O&D focused so it doesn't work very well with BR's focus on North America transit operation at TPE. This impacts aircraft utilization and rotation and makes growing KHH a dicey proposition. I'm not sure what 787 brings to the table at KHH for BR.

bzcat

IAD was always a bit of wishful thinking. There is not a lot of UA feeds at IAD (compare to ORD or IAH) so it needed to have strong Washington DC/Northern VA point of sale O&D to TPE and Southeast Asia. 77W was definitely too big. I'm not sure if BR can fill a 787-9 either.