First have a look at the A330, as more happened here than at the Boeing side.
Saudia became the launch customer for the regional version of the A330 at the Paris Air Show. ordering 20 aircraft. Another A330-200 was ordered by ALC and there are commitments from EVA Air for four A330.
Since then South Korea choose the A330 MRTT as their next tanker and will order four of the type.
Finally, China will order 45 A330 and has an option for a further 30.
In the chart there are only firm orders, so the four for EVA, four for South Korea and 45 for China are not yet included.
We can now see that the "gap" of 23 aircraft would disappear when taking the not yet firmed orders into account. But we have to subtract the 15 aircraft still in the books for Kingfisher and there remain the risks in the backlog, such as AirAsia X and Garuda. So John Leahy should not stop looking out for customers...
The situation still looks different for the B777 (-200LR/-300ER/-F), as there are still about 180 delivery positions to be filled until the end of 2019, when we can expect the first deliveries of the B777X. I reduced the build rate from 8.33 to 7.33 starting in Q2 2019 as Boeing stated that one B777X are worth B777-300ER in the final assembly line when "feathering in". Look at Leeham for details and a good comment for that somehow weird explanation why the build rate is nevertheless NOT falling.
As the ramp up of the B777X will be slower than that of the A330, Boeing needs to find customers for another 150+ B777 to really keep production steady.
I wonder how much longer Boeing will still be building B777-3 after the B777-8 and -9 come into production.
ReplyDeleteWell, I suppose the Freighter version will still go on, but passenger version might not make a whole lot of sense.