No One's Buying the A350-1000. Here's Why...

last month Boeing delivered what's likely to be the last 7300 er ever built constructed during the pandemic and then sitting idle in the desert for 4 years this plan's finally found a home with Ethiopian Airlines with its delivery Boeing closes the books on what might just be the most successful widebody program ever over the years the 300 ER has been steady as a rock helping Airlines grow their Long Haul operations in an economical and reli able way but now that its production has ceased it leaves a massive hole in the market the best candidate to

replace it well that would be the Airbus a350 1000 on paper the 1000 is everything the trip 7 was and more it's more modern more efficient and more comfortable and yet the plane hasn't sold nearly as well but I've got really good news for you Airbus fans out there while the plane hasn't exactly lived up to expectations so far it is on the verge of a massive breakout let me explain now if you followed my channel for a while now you know that I travel a lot but what you might not realize is that all

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doing so won't just help protect your data but it'll also help support my channel so I can keep making great videos like this again that's join delet me.com cob explains to take control of your privacy today because both online and in aviation having control matters first let's break down how the a350 family has sold so far while the program as a whole has been incredibly successful not all variants have performed equally specifically the a350 900 which is the smaller of the two family members has carry the team accounting for well over 75% of the total

orderbook now to its credit the 900 is a tremendous machine but in theory its bigger brother the a 351000 should be the better seller after all it has a larger addressable Market as it's a near one to one replacement for the Boeing triple 7 300 ER now until pretty recently the 300 ER was actually the single best-selling widebody variant ever and with the Airbus offering a Major Performance uplift with about 18% more range and 20 to 25% less fuel burn it's in a prime position to take its place to sweeten the pot the a 351000

really lacks a viable competitor the closest Boeing aircraft in terms of size and performance is is the upcoming trip 7-8 but like I detailed in this video that plan's overweight and its development has been put on the back burner given these factors it seems like the a 351000 should be absolutely crushing it but its order book is honestly better described as modest than massive with just over 300 units sold it's received less than half as many orders as the 300 ER despite being on sale since as early as 200 6 and while it has gained

momentum lately adding roughly a dozen new customers in the last 24 months there are still several critical airlines that have neglected to buy it now there are a whole host of reasons why these holdouts have decided to hold out for now let's just focus on the three biggest first is timing the plan's Market entry was always a bit tricky it first entered service in 2018 with Qatar Airways just 14 years after the very first 300 ER was delivered in other words the world's Tri 7 fleet was still quite Young on the a350 made its debut

now there are a few Airlines like Qatar Airways who just didn't care they have seemingly infinite resources and can afford to retire young Jets when a new shinier one comes along but for most Airlines this strategy doesn't make sense it's hard to justify spending billions on aircraft when you already have perfectly good ones in your Fleet but now the Dynamics are shifting the oldest 300s are now approaching 20 years in age and as they do so they're facing their second or third round of heavy maintenance depending on their usage these de checks will strip the

aircraft down to its bones and can take it out of service for two whole months and while it's not a necessity many Airlines use this opportunity to refresh the cabin as well the the total cost of the service can easily Eclipse $20 million so it's at this juncture that most Airlines start looking at just outright replacing them now there are a whole bunch of airlines that are currently in this position but the most consequential is probably Singapore Airlines as the world's largest operator of the A35 900 they're deeply familiar with the a350 platform and yet

they still haven't ordered the larger a350 1000 but with their oldest 300 ER now 19 years old and with the airline teasing a new cabin product that'll debut within a year it seems like it's a matter of when not if the airline places an order and with about 30300 ER in their Fleet and accounting for a little bit of natural market growth Singapore could place an order that would boost the backlog by roughly 10 to 15% okay so timing is the first reason that the plane has started out slow the second reason is reliability specifically

when it comes to its engines the plane is powered exclusively by the Rolls-Royce Trent xwb 97 this is one of the most powerful and advanced turbo fans ever conceived with an impressive 97,000 lb of thrust a 9.6 to1 bypass ratio and a 50:1 compressor ratio in addition the engine is physically much smaller than its competitors helping to keep its weight and unit cost down but in order to achieve this combination of high thrust compact size and incredible efficiency the plane's core has to run hot and I mean really hot it operates at roughly 1,900 de

F and while the core is designed to handle these temperatures things get kind of dicey when it has to do so in Dusty climates in regions like the Middle East turbo fins are routinely ingesting sand particles this is bad for every engine since sand can erode their most sensitive components but the X wb's ultra high core temps make things worse once sand enters the core it can melt into glass-like deposits that will adhered to turbine blades disrupting air flow and reducing efficiency they can also clog the cooling systems that are vital to keeping the engine

running smoothly this can lead to overheating and accelerate component degradation as a result desert-based Airlines like Qatar and etod have expressed deep frustration with the engine they say it needs a lot of loving care with frequent maintenance that routinely takes their a350s out of service this issue has seemingly prevented them from placing further orders for the jet even though both Airlines still have more 300 ER to replace but according to Rolls-Royce things are about to change last year they announced that a new durability package was on the way for the engine notably this includes upgrades

to the hot section components and new sand resistant Coatings and while these enhancements are designed to improve reliability they'll also reduce fuel burn by about 1% adding to the a350 is already impressive efficiency should these changes bear fruit it won't just open the door for more orders from Qatar and ettihad no it'll also open the door for the granddaddy of them all Emirates Emirates is the largest global operator of the 7300 ER but it's refused to buy the a 351,000 as replacement until Airbus and rollsroyce can demonstrate improved engine reliability now it is true that

Emirates has already bought some 7-8 to replace their ERS but they haven't gone all in on the type buying just 31 there is still clearly room for the a 351,000 to win Emirates business and if engine performance does improve we could see Emirates order anywhere from 50 to 100 of these Jets such a deal could grow its backlog by 25% % and it would likely have a ripple effect throughout the region too Emirates is incredibly influential and its phote of confidence could convince other Regional players to buy the jet too the third and final reason

for the 1000's underperformance is customer loyalty to Bo while the a 351000 seems like the perfect replacement for the 300 ER there are some real obstacles to actually making the switch for airlines that have long relied on Boe for their Long Haul fleets adopting Airbus can be a costly Endeavor it would demand a reworking of their maintenance infrastructure a retraining of their Crews and introducing new operational procedures all of which can take away from the cost savings that the a350 offers as a result there are several Airlines like United and American that have kept their

widebody fleets exclusively bowing and all things being equal they likely wouldn't buy the Airbus even if it was a perfect fit but in recent years the calculus has changed Boeing has shown that it's a hard company to trust with production issues program delays and safety concerns hurting its most loyal customers in this new climate more and more Boeing loyalists have turned to Airbus for protection by diversifying their fleets these Airlines can hedge against supplier in stability they can also use it as a warning shot to Boe signaling that if the company doesn't meet certain terms

or deadlines they will take their business elsewhere we've already seen a few Airlines take this step Air India for instance flew nothing but Boeing wide bodies for years but in the past 12 months they've placed two separate orders for the a 351,000 now to be fair these deals weren't done as an explicit hedge against Boe Air India has huge growth plans and it really needs more than one supplier to help them get there but but Air India leadership has been critical of Boeing's recent performance which almost certainly played a role in the timing and scope

of the deals United and American are two other airlines that could follow suit in the past decade both have bought a ton of Airbus narrow bodies in part due to frustration with Boe and still neither have bought an Airbus widebody that could soon change with the a 351,000 seemingly a perfect fit for their aggressive International expansions and with a combined 45 300 ER in their fleets the pair could place an order big enough to boost The Ledger by an additional 15% when we take a step back here and look at the full picture with Singapore

and Emirates we see that these four Airlines alone could boost its sales by over 50% now a big caveat here these figures are just speculative there is no guarantee that any of these Airlines buy the jet despite their purported need and if they do the size and scope of their orders could be a little bit different but what I think this exercise illustrates is the fact that the a 351000 has plenty of room for growth and that's not even to mention the Boost it could get from the upcoming a 351,000 ulr a new Ultra long

range version of the jet that's drawing plenty of interest from Curious customers at the end of the day the a 351,000 has a very bright future unlike some of the other jets that we've talked about in this series The a 351000 doesn't suffer from major design issues or a market Misfit the plane's in a great spot even if it did hit the market a bit too soon and even if it does have some teething issues to work through so while we can't yet say that the a 351000 is a Smash Hit I do think that

we'll look back someday and see that the plane became an all-time best seller so what do you guys think are there any of airlines that you think should buy the a 351,000 let me know in the comment section down below oh and if you want to watch that video on why it's direct competitor the 7-8 isn't selling I'll be sure to leave a link to that video right below the like button and if you'd be so kind feel free to hit that button while you're down there thank you so much to my patrons for helping

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