Major 7E7 order
 

ANA just announced an order for 50! 7E7's (which is much more than most analysts predicted). Additional orders from other airlines are expected soon. That is the largest launch order in the history of ANA. http://biz.yahoo.com/rc/040426/transport_boeing_4.html

It's also the biggest launch order in the history of Boeing... far outstripping Juan Trippe's launch order for 25 747s for Pan Am.

The 7E7 will roll out in Everett in 2007 and planes will enter service starting in 2008 apparently.

Seattle media is jumping up and down like crazy over this today. We're not used to winning lately versus Airbus.

Will they redesignate the plane the 787, as would seem natural, as we get closer to rollout? The 777 was known as the 7X7 in its design stages.

This is awesome news to hear for Boeing for a change!!

If they do make it the 787, according to my last Aviation Week the derivatives would not use numbers like -200, -300 etc. If I remember they will be the -2, -3 and -9.

Check out the Boeing web site... it has the Dreamliner in ANA colors on the home page. Guess for 6 bn they get a little free advertising... :)

Well done to Boeing for actually kicking the programme off and accepting the first orders. Boeing have always built great planes (look at how many we in the UK have bought over the years) but things seem to have been allowed to slip up recently on all fronts.

Now is really the time to leave all the boardroom politics and such like behind them and get on with what their customers want them to do - build fine, advanced and competitive aircraft.

Is this the first Boeing programme to be started by a foreign order rather than a US one ?

Iirc......
 

Didn't LH kick off the 737 programme? At least LH was the 1st to take delivery of the 737-100s (3 in the dying days of 1967, a few days before UA took the 1st 737-200).

With all due respect to the NH order...
 

I'd say PA's order for the 747 was more daring in relative terms. The commercial airline business was much smaller in those days, as were the a/c. The 7E7 for the most part replaces existing a/c while the 747 was a tremendous leap in capacity. A big bet-the-farm for both Pan Am and Boeing.

Well, Nh order -3s and -8s
 

I didn't notice this before you mentioned it. Looks like NH is ordering the -3s for regional flights and the -8s for long-haul flights.

http://www.ana.co.jp/eng/aboutana/pr...04/040426.html

While it is quite true that the 747 truly was a "bet the company" initiative for Boeing and Pan Am, the 7E7 is probably as important today as the 747 was then. While the 747 was a whole new level of aircraft type, the fact is the 757 and 767 have been hurt by the A320/321 and A330 programmes and Boeing could no longer really compete against them.

The 7E7 will hopefully do to the A330 what the 777 did to the A340 - show itself as the superior plane (I know airlines like the A340 because of her four engines, but with the new ETOPS standards, the 777 can do every route the A340 can and can do it with lower fuel burn, maintenance, and operational reliability issues).

Boeing is a very different company today and would never have gone forward with the 747 launch if they had the same business plan as today. Back then, the thinking was "we will build it and worry about how to pay for it later". Today it is more like "Only if we can make x% of profit will we even consider building it". The only difference today is if Boeing does not go forward with the 7E7, they will no longer be a player in the commerical airline business.

I question why the 777 is so much better than the A340. It seems that the A340-500 and 600's are running circles around the 777. If the fuel burn on the 7E7 is so much better than the A330 (due to better engines), why can't airbus put the same engines on the 330? The big advantage of the 330/340 combo is the similarity of cockpit's cross crew training. Boeing has given up their golden goose (747) to Airbus's 380. The 757 is gone and the 767 will be killed sometime this year. That leaves the 737, 717 and 777 as the only aircraft to offer.

Pretty cool looking interior. Wonder whether the airlines will try to squeeze more seats in and get rid of the space, or leave wel enough alone.

http://www.boeing.com/commercial/7e7/photos.html

The A340's advantage was it was here first. But some airlines that fly the A340 (like Singapore and Air France) are trading them in for the new generation 777s that equal or exceed the A340s payload and range because the 777 offers better overall economics. The A340 is more of a "stretch" A330 then a brand new "clean sheet" plane - a criticism that EADS often lobs at Boeing. The 777 is a "clean sheet" plane, and has the advantages of being so. Just as the A380 is a "clean sheet" plane compared to the 747-400, and has the advantages of being so.

Airbus has said it plans to offer the 7E7's engines on the A330, but Boeing has the advantage over the A330 that the A330 had over the 767 - years of seeing how the competition fared in service and tailoring their plane to correct as many of the difficienies of the competitor as possible to make it more appealing to airlines.

So a 7E7 will most likely do things an A330 can't, and/or do them better, which will add up to enough of an incentive that airlines will choose new 7E7s over new A330s and may replace older A330s with new 7E7s instead of new A330s.

I little off topic. I have read that the 7e7 will "replace" the 757 and 767.
How are the seats in

- economy 3 - 3 or 2 - 3 - 2 ?
- bus/first 2 - 2 - 2 or 2 - 1 - 2 ?

And what will the 7e7 have, what the A-330 doesn't have? No offense towards Boeing - just asking ...

Thanks.

It'll be a wide body, comparable in width to the A300/10/330/340 fuselage XC.

Range & other claimed efficiencies. Not a compromise design with a specific light wing for short haul ops (the 7E7-3) and another heavier one for long-haul flights (7E7-8 & 9).

Main difference about the 7E7 that differs it from other existing Boeing and Airbus products is its extensive use of composite material, which is lighter than most metal. That's why it can be more efficient to operate than the 767 or the A330. It's not just newer engines.