Re-written: The story of the Boeing 787-10 may be the Dreamliner’s finest chapter

In essence, there is an awful lot of clear blue water between the 777-9 and the 787-9 when it comes to capacity. Sure, an airline could fly a 777-9 on shorter routes, and many may well do so. But the “too much airplane” problem is an aviation cliché for a reason: the 777-9 and its sixteen-hour range are not optimised for the transatlantic routes, while the 787-9 is capable but relatively small.

What’s the Goldilocks in the middle? The 787-10, but it was originally designed and sold as the higher capacity, regional version of the Dreamliner. A bit, one might suggest, like the early 777-300 version of Boeing’s previous twinjet, or even more closely the 777-200ER appearing so swiftly after the 777-200.

It seems certain that the 787-10 will play something of a dual role

In a bit of history repeating, the 787-10 may turn out to be something other than originally conceived

Boeing marketed the 787-10 as a suitable replacement for its 777-200 aircraft — the early, lower range, A-market ones — as well as Airbus A330 and A340 models on medium to long-haul routes, noting its range capability covered more than 90 per cent the distance of twin-aisle aircraft routes.

The idea was that the -10’s main purpose would be very suitable for up to 12 hours of flying, but that after 12 hours it started to run up against limits in the linked triangle and constraints: passengers, cargo and fuel load.

Boeing’s tradeoff from stretching the -10 to accommodate more passengers and cargo than the -9 was that its range dropped to 6345nm from the 7530nm starting range for the -9 and 7305nm for the -8 if using a two-class configuration as the measure.

In these nominal Boeing seating maps that rarely end up reflecting airline reality — but are comparable between each other — the -10 was considered good to fly 336 passengers (revised by Boeing up from 330), 88 more than the -8 and 40 more than the -9.

The -10 was, in essence, pitched as a fuel-efficient workhorse rather than a flagship aircraft, filling high-traffic trunk routes within Asia and between Europe and both the United States and the Middle East.

Fast forward to 2018 and the first carrier to take delivery of the 787-10 was Singapore Airlines — the first also to have all three variants in its fleet, thanks to in-house low-cost carrier Scoot. SQ has fifteen of the jets at time of writing, mostly serving regionally, with nine wearing United’s colours, seven at Etihad, and four or fewer with KLM, EVA Air and Saudia.

United started off with mostly European routes from Newark, one of the three airports serving New York, flying to Frankfurt, Paris, Barcelona, Brussels, Dublin and, as an outlier at over ten hours of block time, Tel Aviv.

Randy Heisey, Boeing’s Asia-Pacific commercial marketing chief, says that the -10 provided the fleet solution between the 787-9 and the 777-300ER (and later the 777X), much as the original 777 was designed to bridge the gap between Boeing’s 767 and 747 planes.

“Looking at the future, the 787-10 is in the sweet spot between the 787-9 and the 777-8,” Heisey explains. “The high degree of operational commonality between the 777 and 787 families make the 777X a natural choice for operators looking to up-gauge from the 787 members of the Boeing widebody family.”

But as more 787-10s come online, they’re also enabling carriers to free up their 787-9s — and other aircraft — for the longer routes they were designed for.

As airlines tweak their operational needs, Air NZ is going longhaul with the -10 and ultra-longhaul with the -9

Singapore Airlines fitted out its first 787-10 with 337 seats, 36 in business class and 301 in economy class for routes between Singapore and Osaka (2642nm) and Perth (2104nm). It also firmed up orders at the time for a further 48 of the variant, upping that order by one since then. By 2023 the -10s will make up a third of its fleet and will be used primarily on Asian and Australian routes.

After United’s premium-heavy 787-10, British Airways’ of the model — the 50th to be delivered by Boeing — pushes the boundaries on two fronts with its new plane.

The first is its focus on high-paying passengers to counter a lower number of seats onboard, like United. Secondly, it is the first carrier to introduce first class on the -10. The new aircraft will initially fly between London Heathrow and Atlanta, a distance of 3656nm — just about half the range of the 787-9 the airline has been using on this route.

The BA 787-10 will seat eight in first class, 48 in club suite (business class), 35 in world traveller plus (premium economy), and 165 in world traveller (economy class). That’s less than some 787-8s out there.

Air New Zealand is pushing boundaries for the 787-10 with plans to use it on trans-Pacific routes. It has not confirmed yet exactly what those will be but Asian routes are also likely to be added to the route mix.

The airline’s former chief executive, Christopher Luxon, announced last May that the airline had signed a letter of intent to buy eight 787-10 aircraft with an option to buy a further 12. The first eight would replace its ageing 777-200ER fleet that between them have an average age of over thirteen years — not old birds by many other airlines’ standards, but not spring chickens either. Air New Zealand also cemented flexibility into the deal with options to toggle between 787-9 and -10 aircraft, depending on the aviation climate.

Air NZ was, of course, the 787-9’s launch customer. The first plane, delivered four years late in July 2014, debuted on the Auckland-Perth route. It now has 13 787-9s in its fleet with another due for delivery, in multiple configurations with either high-premium or low-premium seat configurations. (This is along the same lines as its 777 layouts, where the smaller 777-200ER actually seats more economy passengers than the larger 777-300ER owing to a substantially larger business and premium economy footprint on the bigger jet.)

The reduced passenger numbers on the high-premium layout mean that the aircraft has ultra-longhaul legs as well, and will be used by the airline to open its nonstop flights between Auckland and New York, serving Newark just across the Hudson from Manhattan from this October.

Luxon said at the announcement of the -10 purchase that beside the aircraft being longer and more fuel efficient than the -9, “the game changer for us has been that by working closely with Boeing, we’ve ensured the 787-10 will meet our network needs, including the ability to fly missions similar to our current 777-200 fleet”.

Boeing’s Heisey, meanwhile, shied away from making actual promises about range and capabilities, stating that, while the airframer had a long history of continuous innovation and product improvements resulting both from the company’s business acumen and from ongoing communications with its customers, it did not reveal details of product enhancements prior to their entry into service.

But word around the airline traps is that Boeing is looking at how to increase the maximum takeoff weight of the-10 for Air New Zealand by more than 5,800kg to just over 259,000kg through an update of the fuel system. This would increase the range so that routes like Auckland to Los Angeles would have room for some cargo as well as a full passenger load. The same strategy would also most likely apply to its Asia routes, where it carries high volumes of cargo.

Luxon did confirm that configuring the aircraft to reduce its weight and reducing noise for passengers in the cabin were on the agenda. That latter point has been used to some effect by Airbus in its cabin marketing efforts, and it will be interesting to see how Boeing responds and if some of the Air NZ improvements flow back upstream to production for others in Seattle and Charleston.

IN NUMBERS

787

248
Passengers (nominal two-class)

7305nm
Range

57m
Length

787-9

296
Passengers (nominal two-class)

7530nm
Range

63m
Length

787-10

336
Passengers (nominal two-class)

6345nm
Range

68m
Length

All Models

60m
Wingspan

17m
Height

Engines
General Electric GEnx-1B or Rolls-Royce Trent 1000

Data: Boeing

The longest route Air New Zealand flies on its 777-200ER aircraft is between Auckland and Houston, a distance of 6822nm. It originally flew the Houston service with -9s but changed to 777-200ERs in 2015 after retrofitting them with new seats and touchscreen entertainment systems, matching the interiors of its eight 777-300ER aircraft. (Air NZ is inconsistent in its aircraft naming: the airline flies only -ER versions of both its 777 subtypes, but often omits the -ER when discussing them.)

The route is almost 400nm beyond the -10’s comfortable range but possibly achievable with less economy seats and more in premium and business class. The airline has been actively pushing business and premium economy classes, in line with the New Zealand’s tourism marketing strategy of seeking value over volume.

“We don’t want the joint (New Zealand) turning into Cancun or Bali. We need it to turn into Switzerland,” Luxon quipped. “With weight around cargo, fuel and passengers we think there is an opportunity to move to a more premium product.”

Luxon said the west coast of the United States was in the airline’s sights for the -10s, leaving the -9s to the long and ultra-haul routes such as Chicago and from October, New York direct from Auckland.

Air New Zealand has announced a major overhaul for its cabins with the herringbone configuration of seats in business class — the design for which was sourced from Virgin Atlantic, and dates to 2003 — on notice for replacement and it will launch a new economy plus style seat later this year.

It has also been working with NASA on projects to emulate a seat design similar to those used by astronauts when taking off where the body is tilted back and legs are raised. This so-called zero-gravity feel in a lounging position removes pressure from the neck, back and elbows, ensuring maximum comfort.

Numerous airline seatmakers have been developing research, prototype seats and production models with zero-gravity principles, although questions remain around how well these seats serve the variety of passenger sizes from compact Hobbit to burly All Black.

the 787-10 is in the sweet spot between the 787-9 and the 777-8 – Randy Heisey

“Getting the seats right is the holy grail for airlines,” says Christopher Luxon

Whatever changes Air New Zealand introduces for the 787-10 they will come out of Hangar 22, an innovation centre at a secret location close to its Auckland headquarters where frequent and valuable flyers are invited in confidence to test new designs.

It set up a full-scale mock-up of the 787-9 before its delivery to try various designs and seat configurations. At the time it was the only full mock-up outside Boeing’s Seattle headquarters and crew also used it for training.

Once the new 787-10 interiors have been decided, the same cabin profile would be introduced to the rest of Air New Zealand’s fleet to ensure consistency of service for passengers, no matter what aircraft they were on.

In fairness, though, Hangar 22 has not always brought out-and-out success to Air New Zealand. The last major innovation, the Spaceseat premium economy that débuted in 2011, received rave reviews when installed in spacious rows within the innovation centre, but legroom was slashed on installation aboard the airline’s then-new 777-300ER aircraft. After a rather defensive response to negative feedback, the airline eventually removed a row, gutting the product’s cabin economics, and eventually replaced the entire product with a more standard premium economy seat.

Back to the 787-10: Air NZ’s first is not due for delivery until 2022 and as each one arrives a 777-200ER will be retired. Given that the delivery date is still two years out and Air New Zealand’s new boss, Greg Foran is settling into his role, the specifics around how the -10 routes and their potential to add new ones is likely to be months away.

But on the trans-Pacific it has plenty of route choice for the -10. Without any tweaking it could fly on its present services between Auckland and Los Angeles (5,652nm), San Francisco (5,663nm) and Vancouver (7,488nm). It could also use the aircraft on its Asian routes such as Auckland to Seoul, a distance of 5200nm, to Hong Kong (4,943nm), Shanghai (5,047nm) and Singapore (4,541nm), as well as to Perth (2,888nm).

There is also plenty of scope for new or renewed routes from New Zealand, including direct services to cities in Chile, Argentina, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand and Mexico.

In terms of maximum takeoff weight, Heisey said the key to the performance of the 787 family was its suite of new technologies and its design with composite materials making up 50 per cent of its primary structure, including the fuselage and wing.

“At the heart of the 787 design is a modern systems architecture that is simpler, more functional and more efficient than other airplanes,” he said, citing the onboard diagnostics system that allowed the plane to self-monitor and report systems maintenance requirements to ground-based computer systems as an example.

Further, he said the General Electric and Rolls Royce engines featured on the 787 represented a two-generation jump in technology from previous engines. Air New Zealand will use General Electric GEnx-1B engines in its -10s. It has Rolls Royce Trent engines on its -9s, and while Luxon was at pains to point out that the grounding of some of its -9 aircraft over Rolls-Royce engine issues had nothing to do with the change, there has been a distinct amount of unimpressedness worldwide with Rolls’ issues. The carrier uses GE engines on its B777-300ERs.

He said the GEnx-1B gave “that little bit more fuel efficiency, which actually helped getting us to where we wanted to get to and that is really one of the things we weighed up in the end.”

The idea was that the -10s main purpose would be very suitable for up to 12 hours of flying

The 787-10’s growing capabilities are a sweet spot for this generation of twinjet

Despite the initial marketing as the somewhat unloved regional redheaded relation, Boeing’s Heisey says the -10 was designed with range capabilities enabling airlines to fly distances such as Auckland to the United States west coast, but that each airline could customise their airplane configuration and payload to meet their unique market requirements.

Apart from the -10 being appropriately sized to replace the 777-200ER with more seats, greater payload capability and efficiency enhancements, Heisey says, it enables airlines to effectively operate it on a wide variety of sector lengths.

The proof will be in the operational pudding, of course, given headwinds, load factors, ETOPS and other issues. But both the in-service reliability (batteries and engines notwithstanding) of the 787 and the growing acceptance of ultra-long twinjet operations are a point in its favour.

The crucial question — and it’s one to which few people outside Boeing will have the answer — is just how much Boeing has managed to eke out of the margins of error around the 787-10 in the time since the Dreamliner programme’s initial design.

Much as Airbus did with the A350-1000, Boeing is essentially making the most of the fact that the contingencies around weight and engine performance in particular can be tightened up after a decade in service. It also helps that airframe programmes tend to lose weight as they age: no middle age spread here, but rather a package of optimised manufacturing, lower weight components, and increasingly advanced materials that mean that later models are, as a rule, superior.

It seems certain that the 787-10 will play something of a dual role, not least for utilisation reasons. Optimally, an airline would choose to keep its planes flying as close to 24 hours a day as possible. Realistically, this usually involves combining longer routes with shorter ones to fill the aircraft’s daily and weekly calendar, so mixing shorter routes with longer ones to create an optimised schedule.

But even more than all that, the response to its quietly uprated 787-10 will be an answer to a particularly pressing question at Boeing: does it need to re-engine the Dreamliner family as a whole. ANA first ordered Dreamliners in 2004, and the first production aircraft rolled out in 2007, but it wasn’t until 2011 that ANA received its first aircraft, and the battery issues in 2013-14 were not an easy entry into service.

As a result of the 787’s technology now pushing twenty years in age, it may be time for Boeing to undertake a mid-life re-engining of its aircraft, like it did with the 777 to create the -300ER and -200LR, like Airbus has done with the neo versions of its A320 and A330, and as Boeing attempted with substantially greater problems with its 737 MAX. Part of the problem is that demand is drying up: the 787 may be cut to production levels of just ten per month by 2021.

If the newly uprated 787-10 is popular enough with airlines, expect Boeing to push that re-engining process a little further into the long grass. If not, the 787X programme, or whatever it ends up being called, will likely be brought forward. That’s some big pressure on the big stretch of Boeing’s plastic fantastic.