Now that the question of who will provide the 7E7’s engines is out of the way, the next issue is – who’s going to buy it?
An executive with International Lease Finance Corp., the world’s biggest jet-leasing company, said last week that he expects the Boeing Co. will get its Dreamliner launch customer before this summer’s big international air show in Farnborough, England.
“I’d think so,” said Steve Adams, an International Lease Finance vice president. “They’re pushing hard.”
Over the past couple of weeks, Boeing executives have been popping up all over the world to give press conferences touting the 7E7.
Last week, it was Thomas Pickering, Boeing’s senior vice president of international relations, who toured Japan and China to talk up the new jet.
In Japan, Pickering – a former top-level U.S. diplomat – told reporters that the 7E7 would be a perfect fit for some of the top airlines in Asia and the Middle East.
Pickering “refused to give sales targets or details of continuing negotiations with Asian airlines,” the Associated Press reported. “But he said Boeing is in close contact with key customers to discuss ‘every aspect of the airplane.’”
Pickering also talked up the role that Japanese companies will play in developing and building the 7E7.
The “Japanese heavies” – Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Fuji Heavy Industries – will be full partners in the 7E7, Pickering told Reuters. “We said let’s spread the risk and spread the benefit. … They get the advantages, but they also carry the burden.”
However Pickering said he did not know how much of the development cost the Japanese suppliers would shoulder, only that he believed it would be a considerable share.
7E7 program chief Mike Bair said Tuesday that Boeing is still in talks with its major suppliers about whether they will be full risk-sharing partners. Having partners finance the development of their own sections would reduce Boeing’s upfront costs for the Dreamliner, which pundits put at $10 billion. But it also reduces Boeing’s potential profits, he said.
Pickering also visited China last week, where he talked up the potential involvement of Chinese parts suppliers in the 7E7 program.
“The current Boeing 7E7 program, which Boeing is concentrated on, will not be successful without the participation of China,” the People’s Daily reported, attributing the comments to Pickering.
Pickering’s Asian visit came shortly after Randy Baseler, Boeing’s vice president for marketing, visited the United Kingdom on a sales trip.
Baseler predicted that Boeing will have a launch customer by midyear. “We have been in discussion with about 50 airlines, and we are working seriously to get some of them to commit to the program,” he told The Scotsman newspaper.
British Airways and Virgin Atlantic are among the potential first buyers, the newspaper said.
American aerospace analyst Richard Aboulafia said that sooner or later a launch customer will emerge. “Between Emirates and Japan, there is someone who will place a launch,” he said.
But the more important issue, in his mind, is not getting airlines to commit to buying the plane, but for Boeing to get its partners – as well as top brass in Chicago – to commit to financing the 7E7’s development.
Tuesday’s announcement on the engine selection is an “encouraging sign” that Boeing is edging toward that commitment, he said. “It’s another step closer to the point of no return.”
Reporter Bryan Corliss: 425-339-3454 or corliss@heraldnet.com.
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