Current Boeing 777X customers consist of All Nippon Airways, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Emirates, Etihad, Lufthansa, Qatar Airways and Singapore Airlines. However, throughout the COVID-19 aviation downturn, various customers have held conversations with Boeing about reducing or deferring deliveries, until global travel demand starts to.

Qatar Airways is planning a first class cabin for the highly-anticipated Boeing 777X. This solution won’t be seen on the widebody at launch and will only appear on some of the flag carrier of Qatar’s units. Qatar Airways is looking to uphold its premium reputation with the Boeing 777X. Customers for the 777X include Emirates, Qatar Airways,Etihad Airways, British Airways, Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, Singapore Airlines Ltd, ANA Holdings Inc and Lufthansa. Qatar Airways is developing a first-class cabin for its forthcoming Boeing 777X jets to fill a gap in the high-end travel market once its Airbus A380s are retired. Qatar Airways is planning a first class cabin for the highly-anticipated Boeing 777X. This solution won’t be seen on the widebody at launch and will only appear on some of the flag carrier of Qatar’s units. Qatar Airways is looking to uphold its premium reputation with the Boeing 777X. Photo: Boeing A select few The.

Faced with a forecast where the demand for passengers on long-haul flights has declined brutally and which indicates a tendency for a long resumption, what to do with a jet capable of carrying more than 400 people? This is the dilemma that Boeing must try to address in the coming years. After all, can the 777X, the largest twin-engine jet in history, repeat the failure of the A380?

Until a few years ago, launching the 777X seemed natural to Boeing. The aging of four-engine aircraft and the high cost of operating them indicated an opportunity that only the US manufacturer was able to take advantage of without having to launch a clean-sheet project. All because of the successful 777, which, using the evolution obtained in the 787, became an efficient aircraft and at the same time with an unmatched capacity.

When it was confirmed in 2013, the 777X presented itself as an alternative for customers of the original series of the jet and also for airlines that operated the 747. In addition, the new family, formed by the models 777-8 and 777-9, offered greater range and passenger capacity than the Airbus A350.

Since then, however, the market for long-haul international flights has changed. Firstly, with the expansion of direct routes between smaller cities provided by widebodies such as the 787 and A350. Later, with the arrival in the market of narrow-body jets with greater range, such as the A321LR and even the A320neo and 737 MAX, capable of absorbing part of the demand that was previously required to travel to large hubs to reach their destinations.

But it was undoubtedly the COVID-19 pandemic that made the future of large passenger planes unknown. Today Boeing and Airbus suffer from few orders for their widebodies already certified and smaller than the 777X.

The first Emirates’ Boeing 777X on assembly line (Emirates Airline)

No turning back

Qatar Airways Boeing 777x Order

Despite this unpredictable scenario, Boeing continues to develop the 777X. With four aircraft of the 777-9 variant undergoing tests, in addition to being on the final stretch of assembling the first production models, the US planemaker plans to obtain certification for the massive jet in 2022, when it will then deliver the first units to Lufhtansa.

It remains to be seen whether the order backlog will survive until then. Until October, Boeing had 309 orders for the model, half of them from three Middle Eastern airlines – Etihad, Qatar Airways and Emirates. The United Arab Emirates airline, which closed the biggest deal for the 777X to date, has already reduced its contract and is studying a new change in the face of less optimistic expectations in its passenger demand.

The big question is whether Boeing is not digging its own grave when moving forward with this program. Jens Flottau, executive editor of Aviation Week, published an article assessing whether the 777X program should be terminated. In his opinion, despite the uncertain future, there is no way back, since most of the investment was made. But it will certainly be as painful a certification process as the one that led the FAA to review changes to the 737 MAX for several months.

For Flottau, however, the 777X is essential because the classic 777 and 787-10 cannot compete with the A350. According to him, the twin engine giant will serve at least to make Airbus give greater discounts on its planes. The rule also applies in the opposite direction in relation to the A330neo, which has modest sales, but manages to put commercial pressure on Boeing with the Dreamliner.

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Qatar Airways will retire the Boeing 777, the backbone of its long-haul fleet, by 2024. But that will not be the end for the Triple Seven at Qatar, nor will it be the end of the TPG Award-winning Qsuite business class on the 777. Qatar Airways will replace its current crop of 777s with the newer, bigger 777 models that are known collectively as 777X.

Airline CEO Akbar al Baker told Executive Traveller that the decision is part of a strategy to cut emissions. The 57 Boeing 777s currently operated by Qatar will be replaced by 60 newer Triple Sevens, if the airline will take all the orders it has placed with Boeing.

It should be noted that Qatar has said it won’t take any new planes this year and the next, which leaves just two years for Boeing to deliver 60 new airplanes to Qatar if the airline is to substitute newer 777s for older models one for one as deliveries come in. But 60 wide-body jet deliveries to a single airline in 24 months would be a pace unheard of in commercial aviation — so it’s likely that Qatar’s 777 routes will see a service reduction, or be flown with smaller jets, until all the new 777s are delivered.

“By 2025 we will have just the 777X”, the CEO said.

Qatar has ordered 60 of the larger 777-9 model and 10 of the 777-8, which has a shorter fuselage but longer range.

Boeing says that the General Electric GEnx engines powering the 777X will burn 10% less fuel than the GEnx version installed on current 777s, with correspondingly lower emissions. Because the new 777s are larger and can carry more passengers, emissions per seat could be more than 10% better than current models.

For passengers, the arrival of the new planes could also bring an exciting new addition: a first-class cabin. Qatar Airways has first class only on its Airbus A380s, which are also going to be phased out in the mid-2020s. But al Baker said that some 777-9s will feature a first class with a “very niche product” aimed at the highest end of the market, mostly on European routes.

Like Air France’s La Premiere, the best long-haul first class in the world according to TPG, this cabin would have just four seats at the very front of the 777.

Business class right behind it will be no slouch either; it will be, al Baker said, a new version of the Qsuite currently installed on 777s. Seat width will likely be unchanged since the 777X has the same fuselage cross-section as current models.

In the U.S., Qatar serves — or did before the coronavirus pandemic scrambled airline schedules — Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas – Fort Worth, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York JFK, Philadelphia and Washington. It also remains, despite al Baker’s frequent threats to leave, a member of the Oneworld alliance together with American Airlines, which makes it easy to earn and use AAdvantage miles on Qatar flights.

Qatar is also getting rid of its Airbus A330s. Al Baker said: “We are retiring the entire A330 fleet now”, he told Executive Traveller. The twin-aisle Airbus A330 does not serve the U.S., where the airline sends mostly 777s and A350s. Its current 777 fleet includes two models: the 777-300ER, which is the one seen most often in the U.S., with 42 seats in business and 316 in economy, and the 777-200LR with the same business class but 217 in economy

While outwardly similar to current 777s, the -8 and -9 models will be easy to spot at airports thanks to wingtips that fold up. With an increased wing span, which reduces fuel burn, the new 777s would not fit into many existing gates — so Boeing developed a unique folding wingtip.

The 777X made its first flight earlier this year and is scheduled to enter service next year, likely with Lufthansa. No airlines in North America have ordered it, and the 777-300ER will remain the biggest passenger aircraft in scheduled service with any of them.

Qatar is currently the world’s second-biggest operator of the Boeing 777 after Emirates, with 78 aircraft, 21 of which are cargo-only versions. Those freighters, known as the 777F version, are likely to remain in service with the airline past 2024 since the 777X series does not currently include a dedicated freighter to replace it.

Featured photo of a Qatar Airways Boeing 777-200LR in Los Angeles by Alberto Riva/The Points Guy

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Qatar Airways Boeing 777 300er

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