Making waves

It kicked off with Boeing’s Chairman, President and Chief Executive Office Dennis A. Muilenburg, briefing a roundtable on the aerospace giant’s upbeat position on the market.

“The airline industry will need 41,000 new airplanes over the next years and passenger growth is running at 8 per cent to date this year,” said Mr Muilenburg.

To meet that demand Boeing launched the MAX 10 and now has well over 4000 737s on backorder.

Total backlog for all models sits at over 5,700.

Putting that in perspective that backlog is almost double the number of commercial jets built by McDonnell Douglas between 1957 and 2001.

And Mr Muilenburg brought clarity to the New Midsize Airplane (NMA) as Boeing calls it.

“We are very actively in the market and have seen dozens of customers (57 in fact) over the last year. Interest is focused on a bigger airplane than 757 and longer ranged at about 5000nm,” said Mr Muilenburg.

He added that Boeing is looking at two configurations at 220 and 270 passengers.

The NMA or 797 as everyone else except Boeing calls it will be a further development of the companies point to point to air traffic philosophy.

“There is strong interest with a market between 2000 and 4000 but the more we discuss it, the more its 4000.”

Mr Muilenburg said that the technology options had not been finalized and the company was still working the requirements to close the business case.

As well as an all new aircraft the 797 will be a transformation of how Boeing’s does business and build aircraft says Mr Muilenburg.

He says that the 797 will heavily leverage the technology from the 787 and 777X.

“We are very confident of a solid economic business case and there is a lot of parallel work going on and we are making investments at the moment,” said Mr Muilenburg.

“Manufacturing and services technology will be more important than anything on this aircraft.”

More detail on the 797 came from Boeing’s VP and general manager of airplane development, Mike Delaney.

He highlighted that what will make the 797 so special is the fact it is designed from the outset to serve medium-haul routes of up to 9,300kms and will cut fuel costs by up to 25 percent compared to the 787, itself the world leader in fuel economy.

Boeing says that there are 30,000 city pairs that are not connected within the range of the 797.

For the passenger, the twin-aisle 797 will be a giant step forward in comfort with a 2-3-2 configuration in economy, 1-2-2 in premium economy and 1-1-1 in business class.

For the passenger, the twin-aisle 797 promises to be a big step forward in comfort.

The 797 will be an all composite construction and will have oval-shaped fuselage and be something like a 767 above the floor and a 737 below.

Boeing is willing to compromise on cargo space to reduce the profile, and thus drag, of the aircraft as cargo is not as big of a consideration on secondary routes it will operate.

Mr Delaney said that Boeing hopes to launch the plane late next year with first flight and certification in 2024 with delivery to airlines early in 2025.

Rounding off the Boeing discussions at the show was Mike Sinnett, VP Product Development.

He told media that Boeing is working on “low [sonic] boom technology, and examining how supersonics would work in a commercial field. “It will be a very difficult case to close, but very important to work on,” he added.

And the size? “Anything from a business jet to small passenger planes, seating under 70.”

However, Mr Sinnett warned “you burn a lot of fuel to go fast” and Boeing is well away from closing any business case. The technology just isn’t there, he argues, and while he does expect a supersonic plane within 20 years, it will maybe not Boeing.

On “more conventional” aircraft, Mr Sinnett said Boeing is working on a host of designs from the flying wing to an aircraft only a mother could love.

One of the more exciting prospects – the flying wing or Blended Wing Body (BWB) – has in fact been around for years.

For some time, Boeing shied away from the BWB because of airport infrastructure, and the gate width of the BWB’s wingspan.

But Mr Sinnett told Contrails that “if a high span is so much more fuel efficient, infrastructure will change.”

He said that the ideal BWB would seat 300 seats and it has solved all the issues surrounding passenger acceptance of the unconventional nature of the aircraft.