Line 1437 Movement

Line 1437 (RC573) is about to take a flight to Morocco. After recently getting the Seattle Seahawks livery scrubbed, could she have found a customer? Royal Air Morocco? They do have cargo operations, and currently have a 747-400 passenger frame in service (CN-RGA, line 956).

Cawby pic

D-ABYM First Flight, Seahawks First Superbowl Win

Line 1494 (RC032) D-ABYM for Lufthansa went up on a first flight today. Also, line 1492 (RC031) D-ABYL for Lufthansa should deliver really soon.

And the Seattle Seahawks won their first Super Bowl against the Denver Broncos. Yup, I'm calling it. It must have been due to that lucky 747-8F line 1437 (RC573). Congratulations to all the fans on the 747 assembly line.

Somebody buy that lucky frame!

Seattle Seahawks to Start Air Freight Services

Due to flagging interest in the football team, the Seattle Seahawks are diversifying their business, purchasing one 747-8F initially. Line 1437 (RC573) finally gets to serve some commercial purpose!

Photo source

In all seriousness, I don't think the Seahawks have much of a chance, but I'm no Denver fan so best of luck.

Last BBJ Rolls Out, Atlas Woes (Damn You Akbar!)

Line 1495 (RC009) for Abu Dhabi Presidential Flight, the last scheduled BBJ, rolled out yesterday. I don't really like BBJs. I mean, I like the occasionally interesting liveries, and really there isn't a 747 I don't love deeply, but what really bugs me about BBJs is that they're just kind of a waste of a perfectly good frame. Especially for a jumbo jet. A jumbo jet should be carrying large quantities of stuff to far away places day after day. A BBJ carries a couple people maybe once in a while. I doubt these BBJ's will ever even log 5,000 hours. For an example, lets look in on Lufthansa 747-8I line 1443 (RC022) D-ABYA. After about two years in service she has almost 10,000 hours in the air, and has carried over 400,000 people, not to mention tens of thousands of tons of cargo (roughly calculating) to destinations all over the world.

Now take line 1446 (RC004) HZ-HMS1. Cue trombone: wah wah wah wahhhhhhhhh...

Sitting around for over a year in Basel Switzerland with about 20 hours on the clock, waiting to eventually get some ostentatious interior, so that one day she may fly ten or less people to a ski vacation in the Alps two or three times a year. Or whatever. Anyways, I know it's good business for Boeing, but as 747 enthusiasts I'm sure you get my point.

In case you haven't heard, Atlas got dumped by British Airways. Specifically, Atlas subsidiary Global Supply Systems' contract with British Airways parent International Airlines Group will lapse in April of this year, and the three 747-8Fs that flew with the British Airways livery will be returned. IAG stated that they don't need the capacity anymore, what with all the belly space they have in their passenger airliners. However, they'll be leasing capacity to Hong Kong on Qatar 777Fs. Something about that sound familiar? Well yes, you're not mistaken; our wonderful friend Akbar Al Baker is at it again, insidiously undermining the 747-8F with every opportunity he can get. You might remember him from late 2012 when he tried to get Cargolux to dump their remaining 747-8F orders and use his Qatar 777Fs instead, before getting rejected and running home in tears. This time he seems to have landed a successful blow. Hope you're unhappy Akbar!

It's unclear whether Atlas has work lined up for these soon to be unemployed 747-8Fs, but they'll need to be repainted rather soon one way or the other. Atlas did recently land a new Hong Kong based contract, so perhaps these frames will help out there, although I was hoping Atlas was going to take up formerly rejected line 1437 (RC573) again instead. Doesn't look good for that to happen now.

Speculation About Lines 1435 and 1437

The fates for lines 1435 and 1437 are still unclear.

Line 1435 has finished certification testing and is sitting on the KPAE flight line. It's not apparent if she's getting refurbishment done yet. Boeing has her earmarked internally for Lufthansa once again, but it's uncertain if this is real or some clerical anomoly, as nothing has been officially announced. I'm reluctant to get my hopes up, because it would make me really happy to see line 1435 finally end up as D-ABYE and be a real passenger airliner with a long career. If she goes to waste as a VIP frame, it'll be disappointing. I know VIP 747s have to exist, but they really are poor utilization of a good frame. Another possibility is that Transaero might take her up as one of their four (soon to be firm) orders.

Line 1437 has flown quite a bit over the past few months. I'm guessing she was used in some of the certification testing. Her engine cowls were painted Atlas blue recently, and along with this news that Atlas has expanded its 747-8F wet leasing, starting in February 2014 with BST Logistics in Hong Kong, I'm wondering if Atlas will take back their unwanted frame.

Again, this is mostly speculation. We'll just have to wait and see.

Rise From Your Grave(yard) Part Deux

Matt Cawby tweeted that the last two frames in storage, line 1479 (RC525) JA15KZ for Nippon Cargo Airlines and line 1482 (RC605) VQ-BRJ for AirBridgeCargo, will head back to KPAE today. NCA 747-8s are all over KPAE right now!

 Update: Didn't happen. But line 1437 (RC573) went for a flight with the FAA on board. And she has blue engines now. What could this mean? If this were a good blog I could tell you :(

Pic by Matt Cawby.

There was an airworthiness directive issued today for 747-8s about a missing bushing that could lead to problems.

RIP 747-400 line 927 JA8957 for ANA. She goes to her doom at Tupelo, the saddest place in the world for a 747 fan. The locals must have gotten a kick seeing this colorful bird come in for a landing.

Korean Confirms, Delta Distances

Korean Air firmed up their top up order of five additional 747-8Is, as part of an order that included six 773ERs and one 787. This means Korean now has ten 747-8Is on order, which should start delivering next year.

Delta CEO Richard Anderson was recently quoted as saying "We had four engines when jet engine technology wasn't advanced. Now jet engines are amazing, amazing machines and you only need two of them". I've had hopes that Delta would be a 747-8I customer. They like proven architectures. They have ten 100,000+ hour 747-400s coming up on retirement around 2017. They like good deals and I'm sure Boeing would be willing to make them happy on price. Anderson, however, seems to throw a wet towel on the prospect. As an aside, his quote sounds a bit Titanic-ish to me in light of the recent issues with GE's most modern "amazing, amazing machines" (re core icing). I'm not saying they aren't amazing; I'm saying they aren't amazing enough for me to not want four of them when I'm 40,000 feet up.

No deliveries to speak of. A rollout, line 1490 (RC510) LX-VCJ for Cargolux (fully painted but no engines), and a test flight for old line 1437 (RC573) today, if the endless fog lifts at Everett. Still trying to figure out what's going on with the latter frame.

Bad news, Good news...

Lufthansa's order has been made official. 34 777-9Xs and 25 A350-900s. This order is mostly bad news for the prospects of 747-8I sales. I had thought this order was going to be 25/25 of each widebody twin, solely targeting the replacement of Lufthansa's 50 A340s (300 and 600 models), and leaving the late model 747-400s for a future order. It turns out that this order is targeting the replacement of their late model 747-400s as well.

Bad news:

• Newer model 747-400s will be replaced with 777-9Xs
• Unlikely Lufthansa will order any significant amount of additional 747-8Is in the future

Good news:

• Newer 747-400s will fly their full life span (22-24 years) before being retired by 2025
• A340-600s (fellow four holers) will fly a good life span (16-18 years) before being retired by 2025
• Lufthansa will take delivery of all 19 747-8Is, and plans for them to be a key part of their long haul fleet in 2025 (implying they'll remain in service well past that date)

In other good news:

• Line 1435 (RC021) continues her flight test program, now 300+ hours in, testing new engines, tail tank, and other things
• Line 1437 (RC573) is back in the air. Could it be nearing a sale?
• Line 1463 (RC604) VQ-BRH for AirBridgeCargo is back at the delivery center, hopefully to fly into service soon

And lastly, because I was bored and it's a 2+ year old frame flying for the first time, here's 787 line 36 (ZA381) B-2726 for China Southern taking to the skies. And seeing as she's meant for China Southern, this means that she'll probably deliver sometime in the next 12-24 months.

Line 1437 on the move

With the delivery of line 1432, line 1437 remains unloved and alone at KPAE, the last of the "rejected Atlas three" to not find a home. Today she flew to Glasgow Industrial, a private airport where Boeing maintains a flight test facility. I don't know what exactly to make of that, but hopefully something is in the works.

1432's delivery flight was cancelled today, but she should leave for the Middle East tomorrow.

Various

D-ABYI went for her first revenue flight today (that link will only work for about four months after this post). Welcome to the working world "I", may your career last 120,000 hours or more. She's at about 30 hours as of this post; 119,970 to go.

Three frames were up today for test flights: Nippon Cargo line 1479, Cargolux line 1478, and Unclaimed line 1437. Unclaimed is sure hanging around Paine Field for a long time. I'd think she'd be in storage by now. Hopefully that means they're finding her a home...?

An article here has some more detail on 747-8 improvements. A lot we might have heard before. 747 program v-p and general manager Eric Lindblad says that current frames are 5,600 pounds lighter than those originally delivered, and Boeing has identified ways to drop another 1,600 pounds; in all, the savings contribute some 2 percent to operating efficiency. He also says he'd like the total weight loss to reach 10,000 pounds, and perhaps increase the -8I’s range to 8,200 nm, by around 2016. The article also acknowledges that all unfinished frames have been refurbished, so the 747 build team can get back to focusing on building new frames. Well, I guess there's still line 1435.

Come on Paris, give us another 747-8 order!