Call it the jumbo jet formerly known as the 747 Advanced. Call it – as Boeing Co. marketers do – the “Intercontinental.” Boeing may have launched the 747-8 program with orders from two cargo airlines, but the company says it also expects to sell passenger versions of the plane over time.
Qantas and British Airways could be among the biggest buyers of the passenger version.
Reports out of Australia say Qantas is looking to buy as many as 20 747-8s as part of a $16 billion order for up to 100 long-range, wide-body jets, an order that could also include 777s and 787s.
Qantas was a launch customer for the Airbus A380 superjumbo, but The Australian newspaper said last week that the airline was intrigued by Boeing’s plans for its new 747. With a range of 9,200 miles, it would be able to carry full passenger loads from Perth to Paris, the newspaper said. And Boeing’s Signature Interior, adapted from the award-winning 777, means the Intercontinental could compete well with the A380 in terms of glitz and glamour.
Qantas has said it will announce a decision on whether to buy Boeing jets or Airbus A340s, A350s and A380s after its board meets Dec. 7.
British Airways doesn’t plan to move into the market quite as fast, but its chief executive gave the 747-8 a vote of confidence this week, telling London’s The Independent newspaper that he’s potentially interested in the new Boeing jet and not at all enthused about the A380.
“We are pleased we haven’t got one on order at the moment,” CEO Willie Walsh said of the A380. “It is too big an aircraft. There is a big question mark beside it.”
That repeats what Boeing sales and marketing staffers have been saying about the 747-8. The new jumbo jet is a based on a proven design. Airlines and airports won’t have to create new facilities and procedures to handle it. And in case you’ve forgotten, A380 production is running about six months behind schedule.
Boeing said Tuesday that it expects to finish design work on the 747-8 – both the passenger and freighter versions – by this time next year. The first one should roll out the Everett factory doors in fall 2008, with the first flight set for sometime before the end of that year.
Luxembourg-based Cargolux will get its first 747-8 in September 2009.
The 747-8 won’t go head-to-head with the A380; it’s a 450-seat plane, not a 555-seater like the Airbus giant. But analysts say it could cut into the market for the colossus from Toulouse.
Boeing itself projects a market for 900 747- or A380-sized jets over the next 20 years, and spokeswoman Leslie Hazard said the company believes it can capture about half of that with the 747-8. About 270 of those, or 60 percent, are expected to be passenger versions, Hazard said.
Quite a turnaround, isn’t it? It wasn’t so long ago – February in fact – that Boeing acknowledged it was considering scenarios that could lead to the end of 747 production in Everett.
Orders had dwindled, production rates were down to about one jet a month, and some pundits were predicting that the Queen of Skies had danced her last tango.
Sure, there was this 747 Advanced out there, the latest in a line of Boeing brainstorms for updating the venerable old jumbo jet. But the 747 Advanced would only be built if Boeing could sell enough of its current models, the 747-400 and -400ER, to justify keeping the Everett assembly line going for the three-plus years it would take to bring the Advanced to market.
However, Boeing sold 26 747s this year, the best year since 2000, and solidified the future of the line.
Cargolux, the European cargo carrier, said this summer that it planned to take 10 of the new 747s, but Boeing needed one more buyer before it would commit to launching the new version. That came Tuesday, when Nippon Cargo’s board of directors met in Japan to approve the purchase of eight 747-8s.
Reporter Bryan Corliss: 425-339-3454 or corliss@heraldnet.com.
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