Production delays put Boeing's 747-8 Freighter programme in crisis

NEW market analysis has found that certification and market challenges remain for Boeing 747-8 Freighters, which face fresh production delays. Worse yet, there have been no new orders placed for the freighter in almost three years.

According to Gerson Lehman Group analysts, "Boeing has been struggling for much of the last year to get both 787 and 747-8F programmes closer to their certification goals. With the 747-8 programme already in a loss position, Boeing desperately needs not just new orders to solidify the backlog but also needs to start turning the current backlog into deliveries to start earning revenue."

It described this situation as a "remarkable turnaround of fortunes for the 747, once commanding premium prices in the absence of a direct competitor, to now being saddled with ballooned programme costs."

On a brighter note, the analysis noted that the performance benefits of the 747-8 Freighter "will mean that it remains a unique freight hauling machine that simply will not be matched for at least the next 15 years by anything comparable in size."

The report went on to claim that "a late delivery would actually be beneficial so as not to saturate the market with capacity when freight yields still have yet to recover to pre-2007 levels, even in the resurgent Asia Pacific markets."

Part of the problem with Boeing's 747-8 Freighter is that the 777 Freighter offers operators a more flexible aircraft to deploy when traffic is down yet they are still able to reap big cuts in fuel burn and trip cost.

"While neither is a substitute for the other, it is more likely than not that as we see more 747-400s hit the desert, few, if any will be reactivated and even less will be converted, paving the way for the 747-8F and 777F to dominate the upper market segment in which Airbus has no presence," the analysts said.
(Source:www.schednet.com)