How the Boeing jet no one wanted became the plane airlines scour the planet for (B717)

[scottb613 1,188]

Hi Folks,

Interesting article:

http://www.businessinsider.com/boeing-717-jet-delta-hawaiian-qantas-2017-12

Regards,

Scott

 

[ieydis 51]

And Boeing is now paying the price for their shortsightedness as they are loosing sales to the Cs100, hence the whole tariff debacle.

[mwilk 1,106]

23 hours ago, scottb613 said:

Hi Folks,

Interesting article:

http://www.businessinsider.com/boeing-717-jet-delta-hawaiian-qantas-2017-12

Regards,

Scott

 

Airline executives are not known for being particularly bright.

[tamsini 278]

Just like TFDi - we NOW want more of them, too.

[scianoir 610]

The Boeing 717 (MD-95 in its original incarnation) was quite similar in capacity to Boeing's own 737-600 which was just going into production when Boeing took over McDonnell-Douglas in 1997. I suspect there was therefore very little motivation for Boeing to aggressively market the 717. For similar reasons the larger MD-90 also fell by the wayside with Delta cancelling its remaining MD-90 orders in 1997 after the Boeing take-over in favour of the 737-800 and MD-90 production being phased out fairly quickly afterwards.

Bill

[Matthew Kane 1,343]

3 hours ago, ieydis said:

And Boeing is now paying the price for their shortsightedness as they are loosing sales to the Cs100, hence the whole tariff debacle.

The issue isn't that they are close in size, the issue is that the 717 is a much heavier gas guzzler by comparison, so really the 717 doesn't compete with Bombardier's or Embraer's offerings. 717 was an old DC-9 with some modernizing and renamed a few times but was another older platform they were working with going up against new ground up aircraft designs.

The article doesn't say is these airlines are most likely trying to get as many 717's as a short term solution while they are waiting for a more modern replacement. 

Boeing isn't loosing any money when you don't have anything to compete with. By this logic every business in the world should pay me something because even though I don't have anything to compete with but I have the potential to come up with something and I am so great so just pay me instead of me coming up with something to compete against you.....this logic doesn't compute 

[Greggy_D 935]

Nice article, Scott.  Thanks for posting.

[Gregg_Seipp 565]

Interesting.  I was just reading a discussion over at airliners.net on the same subject.  The 717 is good for quick turns...very robust.  That's why Hawaiian air wants more of them. 

[ieydis 51]

3 hours ago, Matthew Kane said:

The article doesn't say is these airlines are most likely trying to get as many 717's as a short term solution while they are waiting for a more modern replacement. 

There is a solution - CS100/300.  But expensive in the short term.

[Matthew Kane 1,343]

9 hours ago, ieydis said:

There is a solution - CS100/300.  But expensive in the short term.

What Boeing did for customers waiting for the 787-9 as by that point those planes were very late, they offered 777-200 at a lower price to fill the demand the airlines were facing, so the customer got an extra 777-200 or two at a better price while waiting on delivery of their 787. Since Airbus is a player in the C-Series they may not be in a position to offer an older Bombardier Jet the same way but it would make sense if they could.

I feel sorry for Delta in this scenario as they were the largest 717 operator and Boeing left them hanging on replacements of that fleet when they abandoned aircraft of that size. Therefore they sold a fleet to them, left that market, and when Delta went shopping for a replacement Boeing lobbied their government for a 300% tariff??? Not how you treat your customer. Don't be surprised if Delta has a preference for all things Airbus moving forward.

[KrisJ 43]

Maybe thats the reason why i recently bought TFDI 717 instead of AS CRJ :)

However I am still thinking of CRJ in some near future :)

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

I'd bet that since Boeing threw a temporary bureaucratic wrench into Delta's purchase of the CS series, that Delta is looking at buying the rest of the B717 fleet from Volotea and Turkmenistan Airlines. I'm assuming Quantas Link and Hawaiian Airlines aren't going to sell theirs.

[BrianW 124]

Over the past ten years or so Delta has been on a strong CAPEX reduction goal, favoring picking up slightly older aircraft in favor of buying new ones whenever they can.  All of the Delta 717s are former AirTran aircraft that they bought or leased from Southwest for a song.  Since Delta  used them to replace DC-9s and CRJs they probably saw a reduction in OPEX too which operators of newer fleet might not have seen.  Delta did the same thing with the Cseries order when they got a three for the price of one deal.  Any airline that had a requirement for that size aircraft would be foolish to pass on a deal like that.  Even if Boeing had an aircraft that size they probably couldn’t have been competitive at that price.

[scott967 62]

Hawaiian was always a DC-9 shop for interisland, while competitor Aloha was 737-200.  I think Hawaiian preferred the cockpit design / rating situation as they upgraded the fleet through MD-80 to the 717.   Hawaiian flew B-767 on mainland/Asia flights but has phased out Boeing for AB 330.  Now they are taking delivery of AB 321NEO for smaller capacity flights to the west coast (to compete with the 737 ETOPS operators).

There's some rumors SouthWest may attempt to enter the interisland market.  No one has been able to beat Hawaiian at it (either went broke or gave up).

 

Midwest I think was in the same situation moving DC-9/MD-80/B-717.

 

scott s.

.

 

[Matthew Kane 1,343]

The QANTAS fleet actually belongs to Cobham Aviation Services Australia and they operate under the name QANTAS Link. QANTAS doesn't actually own any of them. No sign of a replacement for them but they have been fitted out with WiFi so probably going to get more years out of them. Also Aussie Weather isn't harsh on aircraft so lots of years of service.

https://www.qantas.com/travel/airlines/boeing-717/global/en