The Dubai Airshow 2023 kicked off today, and Emirates is making quite the splash, with a massive aircraft order. The airline has ordered a bunch more Boeing 777Xs, and has modified its Boeing 787 order. Let’s go over all the details.
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Emirates orders 90 additional Boeing 777Xs
Emirates has announced an order for an incremental 90 Boeing 777X jets, including 35 777-8s and 55 777-9s. Emirates had previously ordered 115 777-9s, meaning that Emirates’ total 777X order book is now at 205 jets, including 35 777-8s and 170 777-9s
For context, the 777X is the evolution of the current generation Boeing 777, and the 777-9 is the largest aircraft that’s expected to be in production in the future. The jet has been delayed by years — it was initially supposed to start flying in 2020, but it has now been delayed until 2025 at the earliest.
It’s not surprising to see Emirates top up this order:
- Boeing hasn’t received a lot of orders for the 777X in recent years, so I imagine Emirates is getting flexible and favorable terms here, by showing confidence in the aircraft
- As far as the timeline for these deliveries goes, the plan is for 777-9s to join Emirates’ fleet between 2025 and 2035, and the plan is for 777-8s to join Emirates’ fleet starting in 2030
- Emirates is the world’s largest operator of the A380, and with that plane no longer in production, Emirates needs to plan for its future fleet, as the plane is expected to be retired in the early 2040s
In the future, the 777X will be Emirates’ flagship aircraft, and will be in a four class configuration, with first class, business class, premium economy, and economy.
Emirates modifies Boeing 787 order
I think everyone knew Emirates would eventually order more Boeing 777Xs, so there’s no surprise there. Perhaps this is the more interesting part of the announcement. Up until now, Emirates had 30 Boeing 787-9s on order, but Emirates has now totally changed that order (and it appears that FlyDubai has taken over Emirates’ 787-9 order).
Emirates has increased its Boeing 787 order from 30 to 35 jets, though has reworked the variants of the jet that it’s acquiring — instead of 30 787-9s, the airline will get 20 787-8s and 15 787-10s. While 787-9s were supposed to join Emirates’ fleet as of 2025, there’s no update yet as to when these planes will be delivered.
This is an interesting direction for Emirates to take, given that Emirates has long been focused on fleet simplicity:
- On the one hand, it seemed silly that Emirates had ordered both the 787-9 and A350-900, since they’re very similar jets serving similar markets
- Now Emirates is going for two different 787 variants — the 787-8 will be Emirates’ smallest jet, while the 787-10 is quite a bit larger than the originally ordered 787-9
- My guess is that 787-8s will largely serve the role currently performed by Emirates’ small fleet of 777-200LRs, while 787-10s will maybe be used primarily for regional flights to high demand destinations, like India
All along, Emirates has seemed uncertain with its Boeing 787 strategy, and that still seems to be the case now. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see Emirates change its mind on the details of its Boeing 787 order again. As mentioned above, I’m sure Emirates has quite a bit of flexibility here, as Boeing would likely happily swap the order for more 777Xs.
Bottom line
Emirates has just placed a huge aircraft order with Boeing. The airline has ordered an additional 90 Boeing 777Xs, complementing the existing order for 115 of these planes, bringing the total order book to 205 jets. On top of that, Emirates has modified its Boeing 787 order, replacing an order for 30 787-9s with an order for 20 787-8s and 15 787-10s.
What do you make of this Emirates and Boeing announcement?
B787-8 for second or third cities any where. B787-10 for high density medium haul routes not fit for B777-300ER.
I wish Emirates would get rid of the new livery and go back to their previous livery. It looks like a bad cartoon drawing of their previous livery. I kind of see what they were trying to do by making the lines on the flag jagged so it looks like it's blowing in the wind, but in my opinion, it just makes it look disjointed and not as smooth or clean as before. I'd be...
I wish Emirates would get rid of the new livery and go back to their previous livery. It looks like a bad cartoon drawing of their previous livery. I kind of see what they were trying to do by making the lines on the flag jagged so it looks like it's blowing in the wind, but in my opinion, it just makes it look disjointed and not as smooth or clean as before. I'd be okay with this livery for a special livery perhaps celebrating the UAE but not as their new livery. Also the new titles look horrible on the A380 because they cover the lower deck windows. The red winglets are about the only positive change they made. At least the changes are small enough that you can still tell that it's Emirates. Virtually everything about the previous livery was perfect. Emirates just couldn't leave well enough alone. I'd give this a C-.
I wouldn't call their 787 strategy confusing, seems pretty straightforward to me:
B788 for opening new routes.
B78X for high-load regionals.
They've said over and over that they don't plan to fly the 787 longhaul, so makes perfect sense that they'd go with the B78X instead, which can still gives them plenty of range, but offers more capacity for essentially the same costs.
Boeing is relieved that Emirates is backing the 777X. Now they just need to actually deliver without more delays.
This is probably a response to the flydubai order. I would expect this will run them out of business sadly.
Umm... The two companies are both owned by the Emirati government and are not in competition with each other, but rather have moved to work in partnership.
That's a misconception - Flydubai is majority privately owned. So in an economic downfall, the government would work to overpower then with Emirates.
Actually not.
Flydubai is owned by The Investment Corporation of Dubai which is the principal investment arm of the government of Dubai
That's a misconception - Flydubai is majority privately owned. So in an economic downfall, the government would work to overpower then with Emirates.
None of that is true.
FlyDubai hasn't had any private equity in it since 2015. It's completely owned by Dubai Investment Corp.
As said, FlyDubai and Emirates work effectively in tandem, both being owned by the Dubai government. Up until now, FlyDubai handles regional routes that don’t have the traffic numbers or airport infrastructure to handle an EK wide body. I suspect that a number of routes have been identified as requiring something larger than a 737 but still not having the passenger profile that would work with the premium cabins on an equivalent Emirates jet.
If Emirates' 777Xs are gonna replace their A380s, does that mean their on-board shower and bar would be gone? Pretty sure that adding those to the 777X will make their cabin configuration inefficient.
Apparently so according to a Google search.
I see the 788s as a replacement for their former A332s, the 789 as a replacement for the A343, and A359 as a replacement for the A345 (Albeit a rather late replacement) Even though the 789 and A359 are similar, the A359 is more of a replacement for the A345 as far as capacity is concerned. The closest replacement for the A343 would be the 789.
Since the 789 order has been converted into the 7810, that indirectly replaces their A343 (Albeit with much larger capacity), as well as the 772/ERs.
Emirates hasn't flown any A340s since 2016, so not sure how/why you see those factoring into any of this...
Boeing is on a tear today with these orders.