Certification and first deliveries of the Boeing 777X are likely to slip by another year until late 2024 and 2025 respectively, The Air Current reported on April 21, quoting sources who prefer to remain anonymous. Reuters confirmed the story and is also quoting an anonymous source. We have to wait until coming Wednesday and Boeing’s Q1 earnings release for any official news, but if confirmed it begs the question: how much more delay the Boeing 777X can handle? Slipping the certification date by a year to 2024, with first deliveries unlikely before 2025 is another setback for the 777X program. Launched at the 2013 Dubai Airshow with huge orders from Emirates, Etihad, and Qatar Airways, the prototype 777-9 made its first flight only on January 25, 2020. The program was already behind schedule and the first deliveries in 2020 to Emirates were no longer viable. In January 2021, Boeing said it would delay certification to late 2023, citing the revised market situation with the effects of the Covid crisis on long-haul travel and requirements from regulators like the FAA and EASA to redesign some parts of the aircraft. This included software and hardware of the Actuator Control Electronics (ACE) and the Flight Control Systems (FCS). At last November's Dubai Airshow, Mike Fleming, Senior Vice President for the MAX and commercial customer support, said in a briefing that updates to the FCS are constantly being made. At the same time, Fleming and Tom Sanderson, Director of Product Marketing, said that progress had been made and the 777X was on schedule for its late 2023 certification. But they quickly added that the decision to enter Type Inspection Authorization (TIA) and the certification phase was up for the FAA to decide. What has changed since November? What has changed since November that certification might slip by a year? One reason lies with the FAA. In March, the agency warned Boeing that the certification schedule is outdated, a clear indication that late 2023 was no longer realistic. It’s now almost a year ago since the FAA warned Boeing that it was unwilling to enter TIA on the basis that it wasn’t satisfied with the hardware and software redesigns. Eleven months on, and the FAA still doesn’t seem convinced about the updates that should give the aircraft better redundancy. If this is a Boeing problem or lies with the FAA, isn’t confirmed, but since the MAX saga, the regulator has gone tough on Boeing. A second reason for the new delay is outside the 777X program but has everything to do with issues with other Boeing programs. Although deliveries of the 787 are expected to restart from July after a fourteen months delay over production quality issues, solving these issues has taken up significant resources at Boeing. Here too, the FAA still needs to be convinced that Boeing and its suppliers are fully on top of the issues that include shimming, skin flatness of carbon composite parts, and other composite quality problems. Boeing is pushing like mad to get the MAX 10 certified this year. (Boeing) As The Air Current says, Boeing has to triage which problems it needs to solve first: the 777X, the 787, and the 737 MAX 10. Although well into its test campaign since the first flight on June 18 last year, the program is at serious risk of not getting certified before the end of 2022. If certification slips into 2023, legislation adopted by US Congress last year requires aircraft certified from January 1 to have an Engine Indicating and Crew Alerting System (EICAS) on board. It’s standard on all Boeing models except the MAX. If the MAX 10 fails to meet the December 31 deadline and does not get an exemption either, Boeing would be forced to redesign the cockpit systems to include EICAS, delaying the troubled program even more. Together with the 787, getting the MAX 10 certified this year (as well as the MAX 7…) is a top priority for Boeing now for which it seems willing to sacrifice the 777X. A further delay might not be a concern to some... But how much delay the Boeing 777X can handle? Is a slip of certification to late 2024 and first deliveries to early 2025 threatening or is it a calculated risk that Boeing can come away with? Given that long-haul traffic will not have fully recovered until 2024 (without new viruses and geopolitical issues showing up, that is), many 777X customers would not be too concerned if they would get their aircraft a year late. Airlines like Singapore Airlines, All Nippon Airways (ANA), and Cathay Pacific are still feeling the effects of the pandemic. Singapore is recovering the quickest of these three and even ordered eleven extra 777-9s last year, but Cathay is still very much restricted by the strict Covid policy of Hong Kong. Already early in the pandemic, these airlines negotiated delays in their 777X deliveries. Early 2021, Boeing reduced the program accounting quantity or the number of aircraft it expects to build by fifty and revised firm orders to 191. Etihad too might not be concerned. Boeing’s backlog still shows 25 777-9s for the UAE carrier, but CEO Tony Douglas has been saying since late 2019 that this airline has no requirement for more than six. And even this number could be questioned, as Etihad likes to build its fleet around the 787 and A350-1000 instead. Qatar Airways could do with early delivery of some 777-9s as long as it is short of A350s following the paint quality issue, that according to the airline is a safety issue, something disputed by Airbus and EASA. Qatar had sixty 777X in the backlog, including the 777-8 that has been frozen in 2019. The carrier is the launch customer of the 777-8F with an order for 34 plus sixteen options, but this includes conversions of twenty from the original 2013 order. A delay in the 777X program would not only affect the 777-9 but likely that of the Freighter too, although there is still time until certification in 2026 and first delivery in 2027. Is Emirates bluffing or serious when it says it could cancel the 777X order? (Emirates) ... but leaves Emirates very worried This leaves three 777X customers the most exposed to the new delay. The biggest one is Emirates, which has 115 -9s and -8s on order plus 61 options. Initially, a proud launch customer, Emirates and its President Sir Tim Clark have become more and more vocal and critical of the program. Clark was most annoyed when he had to learn from the media in 2019 that Boeing had frozen the development of the 777-8. Since then, he has shown in numerous interviews his dissatisfaction with how Boeing is running the 777X and communicating with its customers. In one of the most recent interviews, Clark already said he wasn’t counting on the first 777-9 until 2025, even as Boeing has built already a number of aircraft that are in storage in Everett. Clark said that Emirates is about to make huge investments in preparing for the delivery of the type, including the purchase of multi-million dollar flight simulators. He warned that Emirates could even cancel the entire 777X order as Boeing is defaulting on its contractual obligations, but this would leave the carrier with a huge fleet problem. In 2023, Emirates is expecting its first 787-9s and A350-900s that together with the 777-9 will form the backbone of its fleet for the next twenty years. Also preparing already for the arrival of its first 777-9 is Lufthansa, which has 34 on order. The German carrier had been planning to welcome the type into the fleet in 2021, but has continuously revised the schedule to 2022, then to 2023, and not likely to 2025. That also applies to British Airways, which had scheduled the first 777-9 for delivery this year. Covid delayed the need for the big twin, but with traffic recovering and fuel prices up, British Airways could do with the fuel-efficient 777-9. While prioritizing the MAX 10 and 787 is the obvious way to go, by delaying the 777X, Boeing risks contractual cancelations. The aviation world in 2025 will be very different from 2013 when the 777X was launched. By many, the type is seen as too big for the job required, even if its economics will be unrivaled as Tim Clark said back in 2019.
