With large Dreamliner order, United will modernize international fleet
United Airlines has ordered up to 200 Boeing 787 Dreamliners for delivery between 2024 and 2032.
The order, which United said is the largest order of widebody aircraft in U.S. airline history, will enable the carrier to replace 100 Boeing 767 and 777 aircraft over the next decade while setting up United to aggressively expand what is already the largest transoceanic network in the U.S. airline industry.
“United emerged from the pandemic as the world’s leading global airline and the flag carrier of the United States,” CEO Scott Kirby said in a prepared remark Tuesday. “This order further solidifies our lead and creates new opportunities for our customers, employees and shareholders by accelerating our plan to connect more people to more places around the globe and deliver the best experience in the sky.”
Under the agreement with Boeing, United has made 100 firm Dreamliner orders with options to take up to 100 more. United can choose among the four 787 variants (the 787-7, -8, -9 and -10), providing the airline with flexibility to tailor the order to future route plans.
The 100 firm orders will facilitate a plan by United to retire its remaining 42 Boeing 767 widebodies by 2030 as well as the majority of its Boeing 777 fleet by 2032. United said the new 787s will be 25% more efficient than the planes it will retire.
United OKs more Boeing 737 Max planes
Along with the widebody order, United also said Tuesday that it has exercised purchase options for 44 narrowbody 737 Max aircraft for delivery by 2026 and has ordered 56 more Max aircraft for delivery in 2027 and 2028.
Exercising the 44 Max options keeps the airline on course with the United Next domestic fleet modernization and expansion plan that it announced in June 2021 as it ordered or took options on 270 narrowbody aircraft for delivery by 2026. Under that plan, the carrier anticipates growing by 200 aircraft between 2021 and 2026 while expanding available seats across its U.S. network by 30%.
United did not say which variants of the Max it plans to take with the 44 options or the 56 new orders. In 2021, the carrier ordered a split of 150 Max-10, which is to be the largest Max variant, as well as 50 of the Max-8. However, the Max-10 has yet to achieve certification and isn’t expected to ahead of a Dec. 27 deadline that would require all aircraft that are certified by the FAA to have upgraded cockpit alerting systems.
Boeing is lobbying Congress to enact an 11th-hour postponement of that deadline as part of a legislative package Congress must pass by Friday to fund the federal government and avert a shutdown.
Overall, United now expects to take delivery of approximately 700 new narrowbody and widebody aircraft by the end of 2032, including an average of more than two every week in 2023 and more than three every week in 2024.
In its Tuesday announcement, United boastfully referred to itself as the flag carrier of the United States. Already the largest U.S. carrier to Asia and Australia, United also has grown during the pandemic to become the largest U.S. airline across the Atlantic.
In the last two years, United has added 13 international destinations.
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