Emirates Rejects Early-Build Boeing 777Xs

FARNBOROUGH, England—Emirates is rejecting delivery of the first 10 Boeing 777-9s produced for the airline given the extensive rework the aircraft would need to bring them up to current standards.

 

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

 

Clark pointed out that he had been on the first of those aircraft that was fully equipped with a cabin and all systems in July of 2019 and the aircraft should have been delivered to the airline in April of 2020. “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.” He predicted that [the aircraft] “are not going anywhere, unless you give them away for $10 million or so. That is commercial reality.”

 

According to Aviation Week’s Fleet Discovery database, three of the Emirates 777-9s were built in 2019, followed by four in 2020 and another three in 2021.

 

Boeing is not commenting on Clark's comments, citing customer confidentiality. However, speaking earlier to Aviation Week, Boeing Commercial Airplanes President Stephanie Pope said: "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,” Pope said. “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 said that the impact of the expected modifications have already been accounted for in Boeing's financials.

 

Issues affecting the early aircraft are with the airframe and engines, according to Clark. If Boeing had been able to stick to the original schedule, multiple modifications would have been necessary in the first few years of operations. But now Emirates decided it does not want to take that route. The airline has “high visibility” of the status of the aircraft given that it has teams at Everett supervising production of the 777. “There should be no surprises.”

 

Clark expects Boeing to deliver the first, latest-standard 777-9 in the second quarter of 2027. One of the test aircraft is scheduled to come to Dubai in September to be tested. “It will be put through everything we need to put it through,” Clark said. Following the campaign, the GE Aerospace GE-9X engines will also be dismantled for deep checks after having operated in harsh conditions.

 

The Emirates president reiterated his interest in a larger version of the 777X, should Boeing offer one. “We do want a bigger one,” he said. Versions with higher maximum takeoff weight are already nearing, as are higher engine thrust options, Clark pointed out. He voiced confidence that the Boeing industrial system would be capable of building the larger variant. Clark is “kind of confident” that “this is the way it will go,” he noted.