Article: Boeing can't "give away" first 787 Dreamliners

Saw this today:

Boeing Can?t Give Away 11 Older 787s (NYSE: BA) - 24/7 Wall St.

 

Maybe a bunch of Ferrari owners can buy one and share it. And they can paint it something like this!
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heck,id take one for free

 

Surprised they haven't been sold for corporate use where being overweight is likely less of an issue given payload requirements.

 

After spending 48 years at Boeing and seeing one success after another this disgraceful incident is difficult to swallow. Boeing has NEVER had anything like this happen in it's 100 year history.

 

Well - maybe $106 million is a 'give away' in some vernacular, but not in any that I'm familiar with. Seems like a bargain for such a plane, but what do I know about the mega-plane fleet pricing and profit. I would be much more concerned about the seat per pax fuel cost than the initial investment. I heard somewhere that the seat per pax fuel cost was the determining factor in the life of an airliner, bypassing all other costs by a wide margin. I could be wrong...

 

This shows you how expensive today's jetliners are compared to their predecessors. I remember reading back in 1959 that a new 707 was about $6 million. That would be about $48 million in today's dollars - still far less than even the discounted rate for these 787s.

 

It sounds (from the article) that the big problem is that those early planes are heavier than the current production... fuel mileage/payload suffers.

 

Here is a picture of them: Photos: Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner Aircraft Pictures | Airliners.net

 

These birds are known as the terrible teens (sort of by line number).
From earlier public articles: These airplanes were heavily reworked to correct design deficiencies and upgraded with improvements. Not uncommon with the first of a type but these are exceptional in the amount that was required.

A customer wants a NEW airplane with years of repair-ability built in. With heavy rework already performed this reduces that, plus as mentioned earlier, adds a lot of weight.

For about the same amount of money a customer can buy a new airplane of different model/type with nearly the same economy and performance.

 

Yeah but I hear that the seats don't recline and that the wine they were built to serve isn't very tasty.

Yup - I can see the lack of a market for them.

Jedi

 

That's becoming a good thing. I can foresee the elimination of seat reclining in coach coming soon. Personally, I haven't reclined my seat in years.

 

So that just begs the question, why not dump them for cheaper and recoupe some of the loss?


Mark

 

They are selling them for cheaper but they will NOT recoupe any loss.

I was just expounding on why customers are reluctant to pick them up.

Think of it as a "new" Ferrari that because of design deficiencies had to be heavily rebuilt and more upgrades added before it left the factory. Would you buy one at a reduced cost?

I'm sure somebody would but I think the majority would prefer a new one that was built right the first time.