Qantas Cancels 15 787s, Defers 15 More
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By Bradley Perrett
Qantas, the largest airline customer for the Boeing 787, has reached a deal with Boeing to cancel 15 of the 65 aircraft it had on order, and defer the first 15 deliveries.
The airline blamed the industry downturn for the order changes, which have been under negotiation with Boeing for months. Qantas said in February that earlier program delays gave it the contractual right to cancel the first 15 units, and earlier this month CEO Alan Joyce admitted that both cancellations and deferrals were being discussed with Boeing.
Boeing’s previously announced program delays facilitated the order cuts, since the Australian airline said in February that the delays had given it the contractual right to cancel the first 15 units.
“Qantas announced its original 787 order in December 2005, and the operating environment for the world’s airlines has clearly changed dramatically since then,” said Joyce. “The agreement we have reached with Boeing will provide greater certainty going forward in terms of our fleet renewal and growth strategies as well as broader resource planning and matching capacity with demand.”
Qantas had already deferred four Airbus A380 orders by 12 months, and pushed back 12 Boeing 737s. Qantas estimates it will save A$1 billion (US$807 million) in capital expenditure through 2010 due to these deferments — not counting the 787 decision.
The carrier will now receive its first 787s three years later than planned. The first 15 787-8s will be accepted but delayed four years, arriving in 2014 and 2015. The 15 787-9s originally due to be delivered in those years have been cancelled. An earlier group of 15 787-9 orders will be retained, and they will now become the first 787s in the Qantas fleet, arriving from mid-2013.
The 787-9s will go into operation with Qantas’s budget unit, Jetstar, which was originally slated to receive the first batch of 787-8s. After Jetstar takes its 787-9s, the 15 deferred 787-8s will be delivered, beginning in the fourth quarter of 2014, to replace 767-300s in the domestic fleet of the mainline Qantas brand.
Twenty more 787-9s for Qantas and Jetstar international operations will follow. The 50th and last Qantas 787 should arrive in 2017. The carrier is now the equal-largest airline buyer of the 787, alongside launch customer All Nippon Airways. The changes mean the 787-9s will be less dominant in the carrier’s fleet. Qantas is equipping its 787s with General Electric GEnx engines.
Qantas retains options to buy another 50 of the advanced composite aircraft, but its decision to cut orders at this early stage does not bode well for it taking up those options.
The latest 787 program delay, a first-flight deferral announced on June 23, did not influence the decision, Qantas said. The first-flight delay will not affect the revised Qantas delivery schedule.
Photo: Boeing
