Anybody else excited about the 747-8?
 

Beoing officially launched the 747-8 and 747-8F. Slightly longer than the 744 (with the passenger version longer than the cargo one too), new engines, new electronics, etc...

Looks like its operation cost per seat mile will be similar to the A380, and significantly better than the 744. While no passenger version customer yet, I think Boeing should be able to sell some of them. Many important carriers haven't ordered the A380 - including huge 744 operators British Airways, JAL, Cathay Pacific. Even United and Northwest eventually have to buy some new planes for their longhaul routes.

Official website at this weird address:

747.newairplane.com

Interesting, yes, and all-around a good thing (a win**n situation).
http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/...r_051114h.html
I don't know much about the business, but would have thought that United would be interested in the triple-7 rather than any 747.

I believe this will be mostly sold as a cargo plane. Some of the 787 technology, including the engines will be used on this baby.

Right now Boeing is focused and pushing the 787, which I believe will be a gold mine for them.

In the super jumbo dept. Boeing pretty much conceded to Airbus with their new 380. Unfortunately for Airbus, it's not the smooth sailing that they had envisioned few years back. Besides production problems, the orders are not coming in as predicted. That's probably why they jumped on the new 350 (a competitor to B787) so quickly.

Perhaps Boeing was/is right about which way the aviation industry is headed?


Heading to Ireland in about 4 hours. See you on the other side! :-D

I think Cathay Pacific should be highly interested in the 747-8. Their 747s are pretty old, and they've bought any new ones lately. [They did pick up a few used ones from Singapore.]

First, their N. American operation is larger than I thought, and they need planes. I looked at their traffic report, and despite only flying 8 daily flights to NA, that's the region with the highest seat-mile of their whole passenger operation! [Of course, the distance helps with those numbers.]

Anyways, their NA operation can be vastly improved, in my opinion. \

- LAX is up to three 744s daily, but they need to refuel at TPE or ICN when headwinds are strong in the winter.

- YYZ is still via ANC, when Air Canada has been flying non-stop for over a year and AC is placing a large order for ultra-long distance planes.

- They're still not connecting with AA at ORD.

With the added range of the 748, LAX/YYZ/JFK can be flown non-stop year round. And CX has the money. The fact that they've not ordered more A346 show that they're waiting for something else. I think the 748 is it for them.

Guess I missed the 747-5's, 747-6's and 747-7's.

wally - Haven't you heard that only Chinese airlines are buying new planes these days, and Boeing and Airbus have hired Chinese as their marketing head.

For new models, only the numbers 3, 8 and 9 will be used. [For example, the 787 comes in -3, -8, and -9 models.] Airbus also have skipped the 360 and 370. [Well, they skipped 350 initially too.]

I guess since Boeing has been using the numbers "7" for so long, they'll stay for a while.

[OMG, even my BSes have gotten longer, now it spans 3 paragraphs.]