Emirates Plans To Reject Early-Build Boeing 777-9s

Emirates Airline, the largest single customer for the Boeing 777-9, says it will refuse to take delivery of the first 10 airframes because of the extensive rework needed to bring them up to current standards.

“We are not taking them,” President Tim Clark said on the sidelines at the Farnborough Airshow. “We have told Boeing.”

The 10 aircraft, built in 2019-21, are in an initial batch of 39 777-9s that have been stored at Boeing’s site in Everett, Washington, since the company suspended production in 2022 amid FAA certification holdups. The aircraft are to be integrated into a change incorporation line that Boeing is setting up to align them with the finalized production standard.

“If we were to take it next year, they would be eight years old,” Clark said. “At some point, I would have provisioned for the write-off, if it was me.” The 777-9s “are not going anywhere unless you give them away for $10 million or so,” he said. “That is commercial reality.”

Boeing has not commented on Clark’s statements, citing customer confidentiality. However, before Clark’s comments, Boeing Commercial Airplanes President Stephanie Pope told Aviation Week: “Change incorporation has always been part of our plan. We have an entire team that’s dedicated to it. It’s separate from our normal 777 production. . . . We have a dedicated team, and there is a different amount of change on each airplane. So if you want to think about the very-early-build airplanes, they are going to have more change than the most recent-build airplanes.” Pope added that Boeing has accounted for the impact of the expected modifications in its financials.

Emirates expects the airframer to deliver the first latest-standard 777-9 in the second quarter of 2027. One of the test aircraft is scheduled to arrive in Dubai in September for testing. “It will be put through everything we need to put it through,” Clark said. Following the campaign, the GE Aerospace GE9X engines are to be dismantled for deep checks after operating in harsh conditions.

Boeing is meanwhile close to returning the last of its four primary 777-9 development aircraft to flight with a finalized configuration for certification, marking a key step toward completing the final phases of testing for baseline regulatory approval.

All the development aircraft are undergoing a layup period during which systems and software are updated to Boeing’s final production standard. Three of the four 777-9s have been updated; the fourth, WH004, has not yet rejoined the final certification phase.

The first 777-9, WH001, has recently tested flight control system failure scenarios, while the second, WH002, has returned to flight-testing duties following its layup.