B747 at 40: Celebration or Funeral?

[A Guy Called Tyketto]

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I graciously stole most of this from The Age. It pretty much
tells the story itself:

http://tinyurl.com/d5qnpo

The last passenger B744 was delivered 4 years ago. only 6 B744Fs are
being delivered this year, and only DLH has ordered a passenger
B747-8i; the rest are freighters. USAF may be the only other customer
so far. Both the B777 and A340 can fly longer distances, so the only
advantage the B747 has is carrying more passengers and/or cargo. With
passengers, the A380 has that beat now..

So birthday or soon-to-be death knell? Will it join the rest of
the widebodies of its time in the cargo business? Could Airbus actually
have the upperhand in the cattlecar game if the B747-8i doesn't sell
the way Boeing hopes it will in comparison to the A380?

BL.
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Brad Littlejohn | Email: ***@sbcglobal.net
Unix Systems Administrator, | ***@ozemail.com.au
Web + NewsMaster, BOFH.. Smeghead! :) | http://www.wizard.com/~tyketto
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[JF Mezei]

Post by A Guy Called Tyketto
The last passenger B744 was delivered 4 years ago.

I think this sounds worse than it really is. Neither the 747 nor the 380
are going to be high production rate aircraft.

The 380 sucked the wind out of the 747-400. Airbus spent many years in
the 1990s researching the 380, and when i launched, it was a firm
launch. Meanwhile, Boeing had an on-and-off plans for an updated 747
(reminds me of Airbus with its 380 against the solid launch of the 787)

By the time Boeing went with the 747-8, Airbus already had momentum with
a well defineed 380 beast. So it is not surprising that Airbus was able
to capture just under 200 (150 realistic) orders, mostly for fleet
replacements.

However, once Boeing has a real 747-8 freighter with the GEnx engines
and Lufthansa has a couple of 747-8i flying, the 747 will be back on an
equal footing against the 380, competing on perforance, price and
delivery schedules with real perfornance metrics.

The 747 will have the advantage of having freight orders to help keep
the production line alive, while Airbus will be stuck with just
passenger versions hoping to get enough orders every year to justify
keeping the line open.

By having a modest order book for the 747, Boeing can setup the
production line to be in low volume mode right away. Airbus is having to
ramp up to "mass produce" 380s to catch up on late deliveries and later
on, once it has fulfilled the initial orders, will need to scale
production way down to "on demand" mode with just a couple per year.

I think that as long as Boeing gets freight orders for the 747, the
passenger version will remain alive.



Of course, if the current economic upchucking lasts 10 years, a lot of
things may change, and airlines may be asking Bombardier for long range
100 seater to run a single daily flight between New York and London :-(
:-( :-(
.
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