Stretching out with the 787-10

Hot on the heels of last friday’s first flight of the Airbus A350 comes the official launch of the Boeing 787-10, announced on Monday at the 2013 Paris Air Show with orders for 102 aircraft.

The 787-10 will feature a 22 ft. fuselage stretch over the soon-to-fly 787-9, itself a 20-foot stretch of the original 787-8. The stretched -9 variant, the first of which is currently being built and will be rolled out this summer, will carry 250-290 pax with a range of 8,000-to-8,500 nautical miles. It features additional structural strength, a higher MTOW, and additional fuel capacity and will be the longest-range variant of the 787 family for the foreseeable future. The new 787-10 will retain most of this structure plus the additional fuselage length, resulting in a higher capacity but somewhat reduced range.

Both the 787-9 and 787-10 will offer massive belly capacity – the 787-9 is already good for six full size pallets up front and 16 LD-3s aft, plus a moderate bulk area – in total a capacity greater than that of 777-200ER. The -10 model, with 22 feet more fuselage, will be even more capacious.

The 102 787-10 orders announced at the Paris show were from five customers – Singapore Airlines (30), United Airlines (20), British Airways/IAG (12), GECAS (10, livery seen in the rendering above), and Air Lease Corp. (30).

Notably, Singapore, United, and ALC are committed to firm orders for both the 787 (in various forms) and the A350, and IAG signed an MOU with airbus for 18 A350-1000s for British Airways, suggesting plenty of room for multiple variants of both aircraft types in the marketplace. Singapore Airlines, in fact, also placed a firm order for 30 A350-900s at Paris, with an additional 20 options for the -900 or -1000. So far, Paris has seen 59 A350 orders. In addition to Singapore, Air France-KLM placed a 25 aircraft order for the 350, while Sri Lankan Airlines ordered four (and six A330s).

Although of these wide-body aircraft orders are impressive, but the biggest announcement of the show has come from the other end of the size spectrum, with the launch of Embraer’s second-generation E-jet regional airliners (the “E2” series), announced with orders and LOIs more than 300 aircraft, including a massive order from Skywest of the United States, which has placed 100 firm orders and placed options on another 100. The E2 series, however, won’t be changing the landscape of international belly freight. 🙂

Photo: Boeing