Boeing sending 787s on wasteful flights

Dante7 · 28-12-2019 09:06PM #1

Boeing has sent seven empty 787s on round trip flights to Doha and back to technically meet their 2019 delivery schedule.

https://twitter.com/inflightvideo/status/1210872083951083520?s=19

Nijmegen · 28-12-2019 10:57PM

I'm no Greta Thunberg, but that's pretty ridiculous. It really does feel like we're in an age of decadence that can't last re use of natural resources like fuel. I was reading a story recently about Amazon reshippers, who basically take goods from people who buy low in one store and sell high in another online and how stuff needs to reach the likes of Fulfilled by Amazon warehouses in a certain state. A certain % of the packages the reshippers were reboxing were coming from one Amazon warehouse to go right back to another one, from one seller to another. You just have to wonder how much we waste on things like that, or technically meeting delivery deadlines by shipping so many planes downrange by a certain date, etc etc.

28-12-2019 11:21PM

It's a drop in the ocean in terms of costs, emissions etc. in the context of the service life of these aircraft and global fleets for carriers. They'll never again make as economical a journey over that distance either. And if you really think aircraft don't make transit flights empty during their time in service, you really have no idea in the first place, so what's the difference really? Misplaced outrage by curtain twitchers without any weight behind their opinions.

If Boeing have a contractual obligation to deliver to Doha and the buyer held them to it rather than accepting delivery at Victorville, then the manufacturer made the right decision. Boeing have enough pressure financially with the Max as it stands so if they've managed to put 7 dreamliners on the books before year end in what has been a difficult year for the company, simply by making those return trips, fair play to them. 7 return flights versus potential hundreds (if not thousands including contractores/suppliers) of workers laid off? It's an easy decision.

Turbulent Bill · 29-12-2019 01:21AM

JayZeus wrote: »

If Boeing have a contractual obligation to deliver to Doha and the buyer held them to it rather than accepting delivery at Victorville, then the manufacturer made the right decision.

That's the idiotic bit. Boeing and the customer could have switched the delivery to Victorville, and saved an obvious PR issue. It demonstrates a lack of clarity when Boeing sorely need it.

Hoboo · 29-12-2019 01:27AM

Where is the idea coming from that it was to meet contractual delivery obligations before year end? Wouldn't be test flights?

29-12-2019 01:35AM

Turbulent Bill wrote: »

That's the idiotic bit. Boeing and the customer could have switched the delivery to Victorville, and saved an obvious PR issue. It demonstrates a lack of clarity when Boeing sorely need it.

Boeing are the supplier. When you deal with a transaction amount such as that involved in the purchase of aircraft, the customer defines the what/where/when terms. No way the customer was going to accept delivery as anything other than 'sitting in my back yard'. Of course it would have made more sense, but it would have come at a cost in the form of discount or similar, without a doubt. Now, the customer gets the aircraft on station, albeit briefly, and Boeing get to write it up in the books to keep their financiers and shareholders happy(ish).

Hoboo wrote: »

Where is the idea coming from that it was to meet contractual delivery obligations before year end? Wouldn't be test flights?

You can be sure that the terms for a particular phase of delivery were met by making that flight, triggering a payment/drawdown.

There's absolutely no point anyone trying to second guess the commercial decisions made here. It's Boeing. This was done for a valid commercial reason. They get to write up the 7 aircraft for 2019, which makes perfect sense.

ganmo · 29-12-2019 02:00AM

I get that planes are gonna be delivered empty...but why fly them back to the states??
Surely it's not a case of the customer refusing to take them

29-12-2019 02:17AM

ganmo wrote: »

I get that planes are gonna be delivered empty...but why fly them back to the states??
Surely it's not a case of the customer refusing to take them

Back to the US to finish internal fit-out, apparently the Qsuite installation had been somewhat delayed, but Qatar Airways wanted the aircraft to be 'delivered' by year end. Which has been done now. There are 'political' elements involved in the sequence of events I'm sure.

In any case, Boeing put their aircraft on the ground in Doha in time for the customer to hold their big event/unveil etc, now they're back getting the finishing interior touches, so to speak.

Furasta · 29-12-2019 02:20AM

The planes were contracted to be delivered in 2019, they were delayed because Qatar is having issues in slimming their q suite business class product into the 787-9 which is slightly narrower than the A350 and B777 that it's been installed in before.

The delay was with Qatar not Boeing, for Boeing they had to deliver by the end of the year to keep the contractual obligations and for them to be delivered they had to be registered in Qatar with the aviation authority.

Could this have been avoided, sure but would probably have cost as much in legal fees as the lawyers it would have taken sadly....

So the planes will wait in victorville for the seats to be delivered and installed then they will enter service.

wetoutside19 · 29-12-2019 07:04AM

JayZeus wrote: »

You can be sure that the terms for a particular phase of delivery were met by making that flight, triggering a payment/drawdown.

Id say it’s revenue / delivery recognition within their q4 financial results and not payment / money related. Boeing can only include this as q4 sales / revenue / delivery count once certain contractual commitments are met which as you say are likely triggered by these flights.

goingnowhere · 29-12-2019 07:39AM

Boeing get paid in full before the aircraft departs Seattle so they can book the 7 on the 2019 Q4 results.

Qatar are going to get a discount over list, so say $200million each, thats $1.4 billion in the bank

Nijmegen · 29-12-2019 10:31AM

I think the “it’s a drop in the ocean” argument misses the wider point that as a species we’re constantly engaging in “ah sure it’s only...” arguments, and they all add up. When we were kids learning about the decline and fall of Roman civilisation we all had a good laugh about vomitoriums, emperors putting their horses in the senate and the like. The average Roman spent very little time in one and very few horses became senators, but it was symptomatic of the rot.

One feels that if climate change continues to have disastrous effects on human life, school kids will learn about and laugh at things like empty round trip delivery flights to meet Q4 fiscal targets as a symptom of the rot and stupidity of our age.

29-12-2019 11:34AM

Nijmegen wrote: »

I think the “it’s a drop in the ocean” argument misses the wider point that as a species we’re constantly engaging in “ah sure it’s only...” arguments, and they all add up. When we were kids learning about the decline and fall of Roman civilisation we all had a good laugh about vomitoriums, emperors putting their horses in the senate and the like. The average Roman spent very little time in one and very few horses became senators, but it was symptomatic of the rot.

One feels that if climate change continues to have disastrous effects on human life, school kids will learn about and laugh at things like empty round trip delivery flights to meet Q4 fiscal targets as a symptom of the rot and stupidity of our age.

It’s laughable to equate delivering aircraft on schedule, then returning them for installation of an interior feature to the fall of an empire.

Think of it this way, they were delivered. Now the owner has sent them to the manufacturer for upgrade.

I don’t see the problem, because it really doesn’t exist.

the culture of deference · 29-12-2019 11:40AM

What about tankering

BA insider revealed that the airline sometimes fills the tanks of its aircraft with tonnes of extra fuel to avoid filling up at destination airports with higher fuel prices. The practice, known as “fuel tankering”, saves money, but drives up CO2 emissions.

BBC Panorama has discovered the airline's planes generated an extra 18,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide last year through fuel tankering.

Cost savings made on a single flight can be as small as just over £10 - though savings can run to hundreds of pounds.

Researchers have estimated that one in five of all European airlines' flights involves some element of fuel tankering.

The practice on European routes could result in additional annual greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to that produced by a town of 100,000 people.

Nijmegen · 29-12-2019 11:43AM

JayZeus wrote: »

It’s laughable to equate delivering aircraft on schedule, then returning them for installation of an interior feature to the fall of an empire.

Think of it this way, they were delivered. Now the owner has sent them to the manufacturer for upgrade.

I don’t see the problem, because it really doesn’t exist.

Flying a rake of aircraft halfway around the world and back again empty to meet an on-paper requirement is really stupid, yes, in an era when climate change is clearly starting to bite. It’s symptomatic of our wider stupidity as a race in dealing with consumption habits.

Future generations who deal with the real fallout of climate change will look at things like this and remark how unimaginatively idiotic we were.

HTCOne · 29-12-2019 01:21PM

the culture of deference wrote: »

What about tankering

BA insider revealed that the airline sometimes fills the tanks of its aircraft with tonnes of extra fuel to avoid filling up at destination airports with higher fuel prices. The practice, known as “fuel tankering”, saves money, but drives up CO2 emissions.

BBC Panorama has discovered the airline's planes generated an extra 18,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide last year through fuel tankering.

Cost savings made on a single flight can be as small as just over £10 - though savings can run to hundreds of pounds.

Researchers have estimated that one in five of all European airlines' flights involves some element of fuel tankering.

The practice on European routes could result in additional annual greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to that produced by a town of 100,000 people.

All airlines tanker.

The research on that BBC story is flawed though. They didn’t take into account the carbon cost of getting fuel to some of these extremely remote airports BA tanker to. For example building a Kerosene farm, shipping the fuel to that farm, and then having trucks move it to the aircraft on some tiny Greek island might be more harmful than tankering.

Inquitus · 29-12-2019 01:45PM

Seems Qatar rejected the delivery?

https://simpleflying.com/qatar-airways-flies-brand-new-boeing-787-9s-back-to-the-us/
https://www.businessinsider.com/boeing-787-dreamliner-airline-complaints-quality-production-2019-8?r=US&IR=T

Hoboo · 29-12-2019 02:11PM

Inquitus wrote: »

Seems Qatar rejected the delivery?

https://simpleflying.com/qatar-airways-flies-brand-new-boeing-787-9s-back-to-the-us/
https://www.businessinsider.com/boeing-787-dreamliner-airline-complaints-quality-production-2019-8?r=US&IR=T

Seems the author is pulling theories out of mid air, no pun intended. Her arse more likely. She knows as much as everyone else without access to the contract.

"Surely these latest aircraft would not have been permitted to fly the 12,000 km trip without the fitted Qsuite. Only time will tell. We contacted Qatar Airways for its opinion on this matter but it was unavailable for comment at the time of publication."

California Dreamer · 29-12-2019 03:13PM

Nijmegen wrote: »

school kids will learn about and laugh at things like empty round trip delivery flights

Watch out the spread of a few aerosexuals will go world wide to be included in history for future generations. Throw your anoraks up in the air friends, our slightly weird interest of being able to track an aircraft is about to go mainstream!

:eek:;)

Marcusm · 29-12-2019 03:16PM

Turbulent Bill wrote: »

That's the idiotic bit. Boeing and the customer could have switched the delivery to Victorville, and saved an obvious PR issue. It demonstrates a lack of clarity when Boeing sorely need it.

Not so simple; airline might have financed via an Exim back facility which will have required export of the aircraft before finance could be drawn down.

Turbulent Bill · 31-12-2019 12:39AM

Marcusm wrote: »

Not so simple; airline might have financed via an Exim back facility which will have required export of the aircraft before finance could be drawn down.

Presumably the financiers would also have issues paying for aircraft which are not yet serviceable.

Qatar come out of this looking like idiots, even if it was in their interests to make the delivery flights for accounting reasons etc. It just fuels the moneybags, oil-burning image that they're trying to avoid.

Stovepipe · 31-12-2019 07:26PM

Lets dial it back to WW 2; Boeing built B29 and B30 bombers for the US military and the vast contracts were cancelled on VJ day but Boeing were still fulfilling the contract and the USAF were obliged to take what was actually built, so, the new aircraft were taxied across the ramp from the build hangars and when the engine runs were completed, the Air Force officially accepted them and then immediately struck them off as unwanted, so Boeing mechs took off the guns, bombsights, engines, props, instruments and radios (Government Supplied Equipment-GSE) and immediately handed them back to the AF as non-Boeing property so they were trucked away to Govt yards. The new airframes,with zero flight time,were immediately sold for scrap value to a waiting scrapman,who pulled them to his side of the airfield and chopped them up and fed them into a furnace, to make aluminium ingots, which were immediately bought by a Govt agent for making new aircraft. So,the wheel turned, more aircraft got made, etc,etc......it was also practise for Boeing to make the customer fly the aircraft out of American airspace and sign for it over international waters and then land back at the airfield and finish the paperwork,to reduce Boeing's tax liability. This practise lasted until the US Govt changed the tax laws but it did go on for years.

smurfjed · 01-01-2020 01:23PM

Qatar are going to get a discount over list, so say $200million each, thats $1.4 billion in the bank

$200 Million discount per aircraft, how much do you think the original price is?

Boeing and the customer could have switched the delivery to Victorville,

And who would have paid the US Tax?

Its in Boeings interests to deliver all planned aircraft by the end of the year as it impacts their stock price and in a roundabout way, their managerial payments, its not a new philosophy as we encountered it in 1997.

smurfjed · 01-01-2020 01:25PM

Where they messed up PR wise, was by not blocking the tailnumbers.

EchoIndia · 01-01-2020 01:28PM

smurfjed wrote: »

Where they messed up PR wise, was by not blocking the tailnumbers.

I don't think that would have deterred the spotting community, who have many sources to draw on, but it would have made it harder for the media to seize on the "story".

Nijmegen · 01-01-2020 03:36PM

I think that folks need be to cognisant of the backlash against frivolous consumption that seems more likely to be coming down the tracks. Qatar for example is a country using petro dollars to fund the likes of a world cup that involves actively air conditioning stadiums and even city streets, and now they and Boeing are doing round trips on empty airplanes for no reason other than accounting / paperwork. Not a great look the same week as people are being evacuated off beaches in Australia due to climate change linked wildfires.

The more you do stupid little things people can relate to, the more likely it is that the public and policymakers will over time move towards more gratuitous crackdowns on your industry.

California Dreamer · 01-01-2020 07:29PM

Nijmegen wrote: »

I think that folks need be to cognisant of the backlash against frivolous consumption that seems more likely to be coming down the tracks. Qatar for example is a country using petro dollars to fund the likes of a world cup that involves actively air conditioning stadiums and even city streets, and now they and Boeing are doing round trips on empty airplanes for no reason other than accounting / paperwork. Not a great look the same week as people are being evacuated off beaches in Australia due to climate change linked wildfires.

The more you do stupid little things people can relate to, the more likely it is that the public and policymakers will over time move towards more gratuitous crackdowns on your industry.

Yeh but does the average joe REALLY care? When it starts hitting them in the wallet it will.

Just like the Green Party were in government up till the crash in 2008. Then got wiped out. Now that there is a few more quid, people care again.

But sure as long as you can get on your week's holiday for a cheap as possible the travelling public dont care!

banie01 · 01-01-2020 07:57PM

Well considering Boeing's 737-Max fleet has been zero emissions since March 2019...
Surely it's only a little bit of offsetting?

AlekSmart · 01-01-2020 08:24PM

California Dreamer wrote: »

Yeh but does the average joe REALLY care? When it starts hitting them in the wallet it will.

Just like the Green Party were in government up till the crash in 2008. Then got wiped out. Now that there is a few more quid, people care again.

But sure as long as you can get on your week's holiday for a cheap as possible the travelling public dont care!

OK....so what exactly is wrong with "ordinary" people being able to avail of cheap(er) holidays ?

The Thunberg factor and it's continuing development appears based upon shouting loudly and pointing withering fingers at other people,and it appears to help if those are "ordinary" non motivated,non activist blue-collar workers.

Yes the average Joe cares,but AJ also works and just gets on with life,sometimes getting it right,sometimes wrong,but refraining from soapboxing and lecturing all n sundry .

Planet Earth will shrug humanity off when it's good and ready,the notion that we (as in a TINY proportion of the total population) can somehow or other alter this reality is self-importance on a mega-scale.

Humanity has never had it so good...with average life expectancy having improved spectacularly,in the few years which the Thunberg camp appear to believe represent the lowest point of modern Human Existence.

By any standards,modern Humanity enjoys a level of enjoyment never before experienced,yet we are now asked to embrace a step back to notionally more relaxed times,with foreign travel restricted to those wealthy enough to afford the time and money to engage in it.

Get a Life,embrace it,and just get on with living it...even if it's on a Boeing !!

Nijmegen · 02-01-2020 09:32AM

California Dreamer wrote: »

Yeh but does the average joe REALLY care? When it starts hitting them in the wallet it will.

Just like the Green Party were in government up till the crash in 2008. Then got wiped out. Now that there is a few more quid, people care again.

But sure as long as you can get on your week's holiday for a cheap as possible the travelling public dont care!

If I was managing the long term strategy of a company trying to avoid having the arse chewed off me in the next few decades, I’d be mitigating against the risk that average joes huddling on beaches for safety while wildfires take their homes might well push their politicians for change. Or average joes living in Dutch towns that are considering evacuation over the next few decades as sea levels rise and they give up ground for flood defences. And I’d bet that as those school strikers become average joes the political winds will change too.

I think the longer a company leaves their head in the sand and pulls ridiculous things like empty round trip delivery flights, the more likely they are to get bitten hard in the long run.

California Dreamer · 02-01-2020 10:00AM

Nijmegen wrote: »

I think the longer a company leaves their head in the sand and pulls ridiculous things like empty round trip delivery flights, the more likely they are to get bitten hard in the long run.

I hope you are right, but I fear you are wrong.

Boeing sending 787s on wasteful flights

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