GoSh4rks

Why do you think the 209ft 772HD will be replaced by the 251ft 779? That's a huge capacity increase.

jsloan

Just a guess, based upon UA's seeming desire to pack every square inch of the HD planes with people. If they can meet their capacity goals with a 787-10 or a 777-8 instead, so be it, but I was guessing they might want a higher-capacity plane than the 777-8. The 772HD seats 362-364 passengers; Boeing is listing the 777-8 at 384 and the 777-9 at 426. The 777-9 is intended for shorter-range, higher-capacity flying, which is what they're using the 772HD for at the moment.

Of course, if UA can find a way to fit 11-across Y seating into the 777X, they probably wouldn't bother with the 777-9 -- and economy passengers would really, really hate the 777-8.

lazytom

What stops them from having a HD version of a 787-10? Might come pretty close to a 772HD.

jsloan

They may run into range issues from the added weight, but I suspect this is another possibility. But also, keep in mind that they need to plan for growth, also. There are two ways you can grow, as an airline -- more frequencies or more capacity. UA has tried to go the 'more frequencies' route, and they've been successful so far, but there are limits. If you're talking about something like ORD-OGG -- realistically, you're not going to fill two widebodies on that route, so the only way to grow it would be to add a larger capacity plane.

Anyway, none of this really speaks to the A350 order, except inasmuch as it's a discussion of whether or not the A350 handles missions that the 777/787/777X couldn't. We'll have to wait to see the effective range of the 777X, but at a stated range of 8730 nautical miles, it would be almost as capable as the A350-900ULR but at substantially higher capacity. Whether the extra capacity is good or bad, of course, is up to United.

Sykes

It's pretty common in the bizjet and charter world for pilots to hold and exercise multiple type ratings, but I suspect that since airlines have much larger pools of available pilots it doesn't make much sense for them to spend the extra on recurrent training and currency to do the same for something like the 777 and 787. (I suspect that the pilots contracts aren't really set up to accommodate that either?)

JimInOhio

To add some context to the discussion, here are the ranges of the various aircraft mentioned in the thread (per Wikipedia... FWIW):

777-200ER 7065 nmi
777-200LR 8555 nmi
777-300ER 7120 or 7370 nmi
777-8 8730 nmi (pre-commercial)
777-9 7285 nmi (pre-commercial)
787-8 7355 nmi
787-9 7635 nmi
787-10 6430 nmi
A350-900 8100 nmi
A350-1000 8700 nmi

As the above table indicates, the 787-10 doesn't have the range of the other widebodies.

frappant

If it's going to be at least 10 years out, there may be something else than the A350?

Do airlines enter into contracts with undefined purchases for over a decade?

lsquare

Probably have better engines, but that's it. Neither Airbus nor Boeing comes out with a brand-new redesign every decade. I think both the B787 and A350 are both new builds and very costly to develop.

st3

Seems very likely that the A350 orders will get converted to A321XLRs at this point. I bet UA would go all Boeing if they made a true replacement for the 757. The MAX10 isn't up to the task and the 788 is far too much plane.

frappant

I think I flew A350 on LH once. But it was 2-2-2.

jp12687

I read somewhere recently that they delayed this order to 2030 with plans to replace 777s then

cfischer

A350 is a great plane, but I understand that UA wants to stick with the 78x family.

cheltzel

Boeing announced the HGW (High Gross Weight) variants of the 787-9 and 787-10 earlier this year. Check out the following links on both the 787-8 HGW and the 787-10 HGW. The 787-10 HGW would be a very competitive replacement for UAs existing 772s (same passenger load, similar freight load and longer range).. The projected range for both of the new variants is approximately 1000 nm above the current range. This also includes an increase in cargo capacity at that increased range.

https://leehamnews.com/2022/01/05/ho...and-the-787-9/

https://www.aviacionline.com/2022/01...mliner-family/

lsquare

How did Boeing achieved this?

cheltzel

You can see this discussed here on the UA 787 order thread (start with post #124).

UA & Boeing announcement 13 Dec 2022, Major 787 fleet expansion, 100 now, option +100

The best technical discussions on this I know of are over on airliners.net. A simple answer is Boeing is strengthening the frame, landing gear, etc to allow for the additional cargo and fuel loads. There are analogous threads there to this thread and the FT UA 787 order thread. But there are additional airliner.net threads on the 787 for development, production/delivery, etc.