Dubai Air Show 2011 began on yesterday, the 13th November, 2011. Here’s a recap of what happened in Day 1 of the Mid East’s most prestigious air show.

• Show Stealer : Emirates orders 50 more Boeing 777-300ERs. Emirates literally stole the show yesterday by placing firm orders for 50 more Boeing 777-300ER aircraft and 20 options. Valued at $18b, this is the largest (in commercial value) order Boeing has received to-date. Emirates already has orders for 41 more 777s, while having 94 777s in its fleet as of now.
• Saudi Arabian Airlines confirmed that they will be using Rolls Royce Trent 700s for their extra A330-300s ordered in June.
• DAE Capital announced that it will be leasing nine Boeing 777 Freighters on a long term agreement to Emirates SkyCargo. The deliveries would be in the 2012-15 timeframe.
• Egypt’s PAS has ordered one Bombardier CRJ900 for delivery in Q1 2012.

Originally posted on Airline Industry Review

A China Cargo Airlines Boeing 777-200LRFreighter, registration B-2078, operating as flight CK237 from Beijing to Copenhagen incurred a tail-strike during landing.

Copyrighted photo. Author Jean-Pierre Gammelgaard.

The crew decided to make a go-around and safely landed about 15 mins later. The incident occurred at 1457L on 17th Apr at CPH rwy 22L. The aircraft had a crew of five on board. Copenhagen Airport police reported that the aircraft did suffer a tail-strike, however no visible damage was found. Multiple media reports stated that the crew appeared shocked.

The Boeing 777-200LR/LRF and -300ER aircraft are equipped with a FBW computer algorithm to avert tail-skids by not allowing the aircraft to increase its pitch if there is a tail-strike risk. The 777-300ER has an additional semi levered gear installed to avoid tail-strikes.

China Cargo Airlines is owned by China Eastern Airlines and has no relation to China Airlines or Air China, both of which do not operate the 777 Freighter.

Originally posted on Airline Industry Review

A V Australia Boeing 777-300ER, registration VH-VOZ, operating flight VA2 from Los Angeles, LAX to Sydney, SYD had a rejected take off after the crew believed a tyre had burst. The crew reported hearing a loud bang which they believed to be a problem with a tyre in the landing gear. The crew of another aircraft had reported seeing a spark off the landing gear.

The crew of a third aircraft however reported that they had seen flames out of the #1 GE90 engine.

The aircraft taxied back to the terminal on its own power following a quick inspection.

The aircraft had a low speed rejected take off and apparently did not ‘took off, and crashed back onto the runway bursting the landing gear’ as the Australian media had reported. There were 305 passengers on board.

The exact cause of the incident is not yet known, however is believed to be minor and is likely an engine surge on takeoff. The Boeing 777-300ER and the GE90-115B1 engine are renowned for their very high dispatch reliability rates and any major engine issues on the type are almost unheard of.

Virgin Blue has decided to charter a Boeing 747-400 aircraft from Air New Zealand “to maintain schedule integrity”.

Originally posted on Airline Industry Review

Etihad Airways is believed to have cancelled four of the 35 Boeing 787 orders that it holds, according to multiple sources. The news may indeed be true as Boeing’s Orders & Deliveries website presently shows four 787 cancellations in 2011.
The airline seems to have instead placed orders for three 777-300ERs. Boeing only very recently added orders for eight of the type from an unidentified customer. An airline spokesman has allegedly confirmed this.
The airline has apparently converted the four orders to firming up three 777 options.

Originally posted on Airline Industry Review

Hong Kong Airlines, part of the Hainan Airlines Group, has signed an MoU with Boeing for 38 aircraft, including six 777-2OOLRFs, two 787-8s in VIP configuration and thirty 787-9s.
It is not clear whether Hainan or Hong Kong Airlines will operate the two 787-8s.
Hong Kong Airlines’ long-haul fleet at present consists solely of Airbus aircraft.

Originally posted on Airline Industry Review

It has been recently reported that SriLankan Airlines (IATA:UL) is in advanced discussions with Boeing about replacing its ageing Airbus A340 aircraft and may well end up ordering Boeing 777s. This is an idea that I have been suggesting all the time and I believe that they have finally made the right decision.

The Boeing 777 is a very suitable aircraft for UL in many aspects.

Economics

The reality is that the Airbus A340-300s are no longer competitive on the international routes. The aircrafts are quite inefficient compared to their more modern rivals and suffer from both burning too much fuel and being underpowered. There could be unique cases of operating an A340 being more profitable thanks to the lower acquisition cost, but this is not true in UL’s case whose whole fleet is on lease. In fact, with the Mid East turmoil causing uncertainty over aircraft lease rates and backlogs, this could be the perfect timing for UL to get a very lucrative deal on the 777s.

Capacity

The 777 will enable UL to carry more revenue passengers as well as cargo, with a lower CASM.

Pilot shortage

UL is currently coping with a shortage of pilots, with lacking at least 50 pilots than the required level. The 777 will enable UL to circumvent this issue by hiring type rated expatriate pilots temporarily – without the opposition from the unions – and then training its own crew for the aircraft, for which Boeing is likely to provide an incentive.

There is no clue as of now about which model UL will acquire – however I believe that Boeing will want UL to order 777-300ERs. One might argue that UL presently does not operate any routes with sufficient demand for a 777-300ER – which is true. However, with Sri Lanka’s tourism prospects looking good, and if SriLankan executes its plan well – there is a considerable chance that the carrier could support a 777-300ER in a few years. And with the present Boeing 777 backlog running into about three years, this sounds very plausible.
However, at the moment UL’s Airbus A340-300s are already too old, and refurbishing will only incur a waste of expenditure. Hence I would like to suggest that SriLankan should cancel its currently being planned lease for an extra A340-300 and instead start leasing used Boeing 777-200ERs. The 777-200ER is the perfect replacement aircraft for SriLankan’s A340s, bringing in better economics as well as added capacity, at a very lucrative leasing rate. With a barrel of oil at $105 as of this writing, the timing could never have been better.

SriLankan’s 777-200ER

This whole article is a big IF, but for aviation enthusiasm’s sake, let’s have a look at this article’s key subject – the aircraft’s seating configuration.

SriLankan’s current fleet consists of five A340-300s, five A330-200s and four A320-200s – all of which (except one A320) are configured in a two class layout. Of these aircraft, the A340s seat 295 and 296 (3 of 5) passengers with a Business Class consisting of 18 seats. Three A320s and four of the A330s have 12 Business Class seats each. All of the aforementioned aircraft have recliner seats in Business Class while UL’s newest widebody aircraft, an ex BMI A330-200, has a Business Class consisting of 18 fully flat-bed seats.
SriLankan management had constantly stated that they aim to refurbish the existing widebody fleet with flat-bed seats, hence it is likely that they would want any new widebody aircraft to feature the same. With this in mind, lets move into configuring the aircraft.

Business Class – SriLankan retained the original BMI Business Class on the A330 which included a horizontal fully flat-bed (180) with a 79-80″ pitch. This has pulled down this particular aircraft’s seat count to 254 (18C/236J) from SriLankan’s A330 standard of 287 (12J/275Y).

UL is an airline that is competing with the Mid East carriers, who have the power and scale for undercutting, for transit traffic and is hence regularly forced to price its fares for cheap – including fares for a Business Class (of the said A330) that is on par with the First Class of most carriers. Nor is SriLankan benefitting from a high yield, high paying business traffic like SIA at Singapore or Cathay Pacific at Hong Kong does.

Hence, my initial suggestion is that UL should add only Lie Flat seats to their 777s (or any other widebody). Lie flat seats are the standard of most prestigious airlines’ Business Class and are often marketed as a flat-bed. The average traveller rarely knows the difference between a lie flat seat and a fully flat-bed and hence equipping its Business Class with fully flat beds does not give UL any advantage (other than the disadvantage of having to configure much less seats).

However, if UL must equip fully flat beds, let’s at least stop by installing a modest 69″-70″ pitch variant, without going all the way to a 80″ pitch. This saves expensive aircraft real estate and still provides UL with a product that is on par with, or even exceeds, the best of its competitors.

With a 69″ pitch and 6 abreast seating, my suggestion is for UL to install 30 flat-bed seats (or 36-42 lie flat seats). If UL decides to adopt the emerging 7 abreast seating concept, this number goes up to 35 flat beds. While this count sounds rather high, by present UL standards, to reap the maximum benefit of installing the flat beds – UL should opt to install at least 30 seats. The demand will be naturally stimulated once there is enough capacity.

Economy Class – With most airlines nowadays opting to use the ten-abreast configuration on Boeing 777 Economy Class, there is no marginal advantage to an airline that doesn’t. Hence UL should not hesitate to use ten abreast seating and go all the way to 304 economy class seats.

While this is just an eight seat increase over the existing A340s, this will present a considerable increase of capacity over a refurbished A340 with flat beds, which will likely feature about 250 Economy Class seats.

So, this makes the final seating configuration of our UL 777-200ER a very promising 334 (30C/ 304Y – or 340; 36J/304Y) that will very well suit the airline.

A detailed piece about how SriLankan’s flight schedule should be reshaped with the 777s could be found here at The Networker of Flightglobal.

Originally posted on Airline Industry Review

UPDATE: During American’s financial call in late February, the airline increased firm orders for the type to three.

American Airlines today announced that it has entered into an agreement with Boeing for the purchase of two Boeing 777-300ERs. The aircraft will be delivered in late 2012, and have made AA the first U.S airline to order the type.

Artist's impression of American Airlines 777-300ER

AA is known to have started sub-fleets with a small number and expanded upon them. In a letter to employees, American CEO Gerard Arpey had stated that the new type may be used to launch new routes. It has also been mentioned that AA is looking for used 777-300ERs, however this remains to be confirmed.

American has reduced its 2010 full year loss to $471m from the $1.5 in the previous year and also has 35 Boeing 737-800s on order.

Originally posted on Airline Industry Review

Aeroflot, the Russian flag carrier has announced plans to order 16 Boeing 777 aircraft.

The LoI, reportedly signed in late September, covers eight 777-200ERs and eight 777-300ERs, for delivery between 2012 – 2017.
The orders are believed to be a stop-gap measure for the delayed delivery of the Boeing 787s ordered by Aeroflot.
The airline in a statement had mentioned that it was discussing with Boeing about the possibility of delivery of two 787s in time for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
The airline had in the past briefly operated some 777-200 variants before replacing them in favor of 767s.Similar

Originally posted on Airline Industry Review

Vietnam Airlines flight VN535, from Hanoi to Paris CDG, operated by Boeing 777-200ER VN-A147 ( cn27607 ) got caught in an air pocket over Russia inflight.
Reuters reported that the incident caused injuries to 21 people onboard, of which 9 ( including 3 crew ) were being treated for serious injuries at a Paris hospital. The remaining had received slight injuries.
The aircraft had continued to Paris for a safe landing.
Please note that this is a minor incident and only a normal occurence. This post was meant to avoid misinformation being communicated about the incident, where this could be reported to the extent that the 777 is unsafe to fly in.

Originally posted on Airline Industry Review

FlightGlobal has reported today that Boeing has announced its intention to secure Boeing 777BCF ( Boeing Converted Freighter ) customer in early 2011.
777BCF Programme Manager Ralph Kramer has stated that a number of carriers and lessors have expressed their interest in the programme and suggested that Boeing is waiting for the required quantity for the program to go ahead, is generated.
He has further stated that FedEx, which was said to be evaluating the program, along with an airline the like of UPS would be large enough for Boeing to launch the BCF with one customer.
The 777-200ERBCF is expected to carry a payload of around 180,000lb on a range of 4,000nm.
The -200ER variant is considered the model with the highest potential given its lower age and lower total cycles due to the usage on longer flights.

In other news, according to industry sources, FedEx is quite happy with the performance of its 777-200LRF fleet and is keen on adding more. It was recently rumoured that FedEx is interested in purchasing the oldest Singapore Airlines 777-200ER ( derated ) aircraft.

Originally posted on Airline Industry Review