BA’s widebody capacity conundrum
Crunching the numbers around the British Airways widebody fleet indicates that its near-term capacity will be significantly constrained unless any fleet expansion/renewal plans can be accelerated.
Cirium data shows that immediately prior to the Covid crisis, British Airways had over 130 widebodies in service - including 32 of its old but faithful 747-400s. The airline’s widebody fleet is now back up to full strength - but without the 747 of course - and seven new twin-aisles have also arrived this year (two 787-10s and five A350-1000s).
But our fleet data indicates that based on current and estimated future deliveries, the widebody fleet in unit terms remains 10% below pre-crisis volumes and will not recover to end-2019 numbers for another three years. There are several factors driving this, central to which was the decision to permanently remove all remaining 747-400s in the crisis in 2020. The 747s had previously been expected to remain part of the BA fleet until 2024. By then, the 777-9 was due to have begun delivering as replacements, along with other new-gen twin-aisles on order.
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But the 777-9 has had its own problems causing the programme to move significantly to the right. As it stands, Boeing is not now due to deliver the 777-9 to anyone until 2025, and with BA not due to be among early recipients, its first are unlikely to arrive before 2026.
Cirium data shows that BA’s widebody firm order backlog today stands at 31 aircraft: five A350-1000s, eight 787s and 18 777-9s. The airline has a large, ageing fleet of 777-200ERs (42 aircraft, many of which were delivered at the end of the last century), so devising a fleet renewal plan at its Waterside HQ appears to be an increasing matter of urgency…
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Director JLS Consulting
2 年Series challenge to address here for British Airways long haul fleet renewal as explained succinctly by Max Kingsley-Jones
CEO at Kestrel Aviation Management
2 年Great insight Max
GM Aeronautical Development at Christchurch International Airport Limited
2 年It means BA may need to turn off the connection traffic to satisfy the local point to point market. It will be solved by rev man, with lower end connecting passenger priced out, assuming this is a short term conundrum
Trust but verify with data. FULLY supports DEI. Published Author and Analyst, Aviation, Travel, Expert. Principal @ T2Impact, LLC. Story Teller.
2 年This may be a little out of the ordinary. But let's assume Max is correct. Where could BA go for short term high capacity lift? Well 6x MH and 6x TG are now available (plus 5x CZ) all with RR power. Retrofit possible, although all of them would need a lot of time and money to put them to BA's spec or perhaps a short term hybrid spec might be good enough. They are roughly of the same vintage 2011-16 I believe. A 3 year investment decision might work.
Every risk is an opportunity
2 年Indeed there’s mix change with BA now seeing fewer premium seats per widebody departure compared to pre-Covid. Luis Gallego said premium capacity across the Atlantic is down 1% and non-premium down 5%, although it wasn’t stated if that was BA-only or all of IAG. Despite premium cabins seeing a slower rebound (especially in premium business/corporate as opposed to premium leisure), the inference seems to be that BA would like higher premium capacity. In the pre-Covid plan, was the 777-9 a replacement for the High/Super High-J 744s?