This is very bad news for Boeing, and for airlines, and for consumers who have been looking forward to the new cabins some airlines were going to introduce on the 777X.
Basics of the Boeing 777X
For those of you not familiar, the Boeing 777X is Boeing’s newest version of the 777. It will come in two variants — the 777-8 and 777-9 — and the planes are both longer range and larger than existing 777s (and larger than 787s, which are also popular).
With there clearly not being a market anymore for planes like the A380 and 747-8 (even pre-pandemic), this will likely be the biggest new aircraft we see manufactured in the next decade. The plane is already a few years late — deliveries were originally supposed to start in 2020, but have already been delayed until 2023 at the earliest. Now the situation has become even worse.
Boeing 777X has “serious flight test incident”
Dominic Gates at The Seattle Times reports on major new concerns with the Boeing 777X, which are now realistically pushing certification of the plane out to late 2023, meaning deliveries will now start in 2024 at the earliest.
On May 13, 2021, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) sent a letter to Boeing stating that the number of test flights planned for the 777X may have to increase, as the plane is realistically more than two years from being certified.
The FAA cited a long list of concerns, the most significant of which involved a December 8, 2020, test flight. During this, the plane experienced an “uncommanded pitch event,” meaning the nose of the aircraft pitched upward or downward without input from the pilots.
The FAA is under increased scrutiny following the 737 MAX fiasco, where the organization was accused of being too cozy with Boeing. You can bet that the FAA will be much more diligent this time around, especially when the plane apparently had a “pitch event” during a test flight, which sounds mighty similar to what happened to the 737 MAX.
The letter states that “the technical data required for type certification has not reached a point where it appears the aircraft type design is mature and can be expected to meet the applicable regulations.”
An unnamed FAA source is also quoted, who states that “there’s a general feeling that Boeing has kind of lost a step,” referring to Boeing’s reputation for excellence in the past, and that “the days of Boeing being able to say to the FAA ‘just trust us’ are long gone.”
This doesn’t sound good…
Specific to the 777X, it sounds like we now shouldn’t expect the first delivery of this plane until 2024, and that’s best case scenario. That’s pretty terrible when you consider that in 2019 the plan was for the first plane to be delivered in 2020. Suffering a four year delay in a bit over a year is… not great.
I’d expect the FAA to be extra diligent with the 777X following the 737 MAX issues, especially with an alleged pitch incident on a test flight late last year.
It really is unfortunate how Boeing’s reputation has deteriorated in the past few years. It’s not just the 737 MAX issue as such, but everything about the company’s corporate culture that came out following that. Now there are 777X issues.
And that doesn’t even account for Boeing’s product lineup hardly being competitive anymore. Airbus is on track to have the A321XLR flying by 2023, and Boeing doesn’t even have a competitor to that.
While the 777X delays are on the surface bad for airlines, I wonder if these continued delays might give some airlines an easy way to cancel their orders, given how the industry has changed. Boeing has already seen a significant number of 777X order cancelations and deferrals.
Bottom line
The Boeing 777X is allegedly having several problems with its certification, not the least of which is a pitch incident that occurred on a test flight in late 2020. We should expect it to be well over two years before the plane is certified, and that means that at this point the plane won’t enter service before early 2024 at the earliest.
What do you make of these latest Boeing 777X issues?
Boeing needs to fire their leadership. Move the headquarters back to Seattle and put the engineers in charge.
Boeing's focus on quarterly dividends and stock buybacks now coming home to roost. A company that fails to innovate effectively and that can't sustain a long range vision will deteriorate.
It's sad, because Boeing used to be a powerful engineering company. Now that it's been thoroughly Wall Streeted, they can't produce the products that would sustain earnings and growth for the future.
Airbus will continue to lead, and that has as much to...
Boeing ceased paying a dividend in 2020.
That is because... in 2019..., they launched a faulty Starliner,
so NASA said...., yeaaaah, we ain't giving you no more money for the program testing.
So Boeing had to do it on it's own dime & time,
with spaceX leap & bounds ahead they had no choice,
so they basically used that divi money for the certification of the starliner that will be launching here in july.
Also, Boeing's efforts and investment in low and zero carbon pollution aircraft are many years behind and much smaller than Airbus.
Market forces favoring less impactful aviation will get substantially stronger in the coming years.
Boeing leadership's failure to understand and invest is unfortunate given the company's history as an aviation leader.
Is it too late for Boeing to pull the plug on the 777X and focus on creating a 787 Next Gen instead?
What makes you think they could complete a 787 Next Gen program instead of the 777X? Boeing at one one point in time was arguably the finest engineering company in the world, but unfortunately that is not the case now. I agree with those who suggest that Boeing will never product another new aircraft model (the 787 is the last), but will instead milk the 737 and 787 for as long as they can and...
Will Americans accept a Chinese built airliner? A Airbus monopoly is not healthy.
The America can proudly declare that they are the capitalist first and the nationalist second. So let look at other cost effective and technically advanced eastern countries for the expensive aviation aircraft design, development and manufacturing. The USA R&D and manufacturing costs are very high. I think Wall Street cares more about the short term profits!!!
If I remember correctly, Emirates reduced its order of 150 by 15-20% citing delays and swapping them for 787s.
I wonder what further delays - if any - in 2022 and 2023 will do to Boeing's order book? One big domino falls and.......
The B777X is needed because the B787 is too small; as it does with just about every model, Airbus waited until Boeing designed the 787 and then designed its own response, the A350, which is larger and more capable than the B787. The A350-1000 competes with the smaller version of the B777X. In order to get the seat mile costs down for the B777X since it is not a lighter composite aircraft like the B787...
Formerly one of the USA's leading engineering and manufacturing companies, Boeing is now a hot, giant mess. Boeing basically has two sides, commercial and military/government. The commercial side was obviously rocked by the crashes, subsequent lengthy grounding and production halt of the 737 MAX. Unlike Airbus which has a thriving order book for the newer A320 neo aircraft family and also the modern A220 series acquired from Bombardier, the 737 MAX is Boeing's (out)dated and...
Back in the day when Boeing had world class engineers (before they all retired) that used slide rules, adding machines, and photoelasticity before the computer came around, and put thousands of man hours in design and testing, took pride in their work. I don't think that's the case today. They have fewer engineers, that do the majority of everything in design and flight avionics on a supercomputer.
Why double check when you have a...
Amazing how Boeing / Airbus fortunes have reversed so quickly. Not so long ago, Airbus had an uncompetitive A340, an A380 that only one customer really wanted. Meanwhile, Boeing was looking like a genius for going after long/thin routes with the 787, and the 777 was incredibly successful. Then came the 737 Max crisis, 777X delays, and production issues, while Airbus is enjoying great success with the A320neo and A350. And now Airbus is looking...
As only a casual observer of the aircraft industry, my take is that Boeing pivoted from being engineering driven company to a sales and cost cutting driven company in the 90s.
While this is common in so much of what passes for innovative "management" today, this is a tragic error for a business where these decisions actually cost lives.
The evidence for this is clear in their move of their headquarters from Seattle...