Friday, December 08, 2006
Big Order for Boeing: Lufthansa Becomes First Airline to Order New 747-8 Intercontinental
This past week German carrier Lufthansa became the first airline to order the passenger version of Boeing's latest, greatest incarnation of its 747, the 747-8 Intercontinental.
Although Boeing announced the 747-8 project in November 2005, until Lufthansa placed this order, no other carrier had opted for the passenger version of this plane, even though a handful of carriers have already placed orders for the freighter version.Lufthansa selected the Intercontinental, which will seat 467, to position it between the carrier's super-jumbo A380, which will typically seat 555 in a three-class configuration when it comes to Lufthansa in mid-2009, and the carrier's A340-600, which typically seats 380 in a three class configuration.
The 747 has been in service since 1969, and has been updated more than once. The Intercontinental is the first update of Boeing's incredibly successful jumbo since 1988, when the 747-400 went into service. Beyond stretching the fuselage by more than 18 feet, which adds 51 additional seats, what really makes this latest incarnation of the 747 unique are the highly-advanced General Electric engines that were developed as part of the 787 Dreamliner project. Because of these highly-efficient engines, the new Intercontinental will be 10% cheaper to operate (on a "seat-mile" basis, which is the standard unit of measure of variable operating costs in the industry) than the current 747-400. According to Boeing, the Intercontinental will also be cheaper to operate than the A380 (reducing the cost of each trip by 19% and a seat-mile cost savings of 3%. Quite a bold claim, to be frank.
Geek note: You may be wondering why Boeing, after developing the 747-100 (launched in 1968), 747-200 (1970), 747-300 (1982), and 747-400 (1988), has named the latest version of the jumbo the 747-8? There are two reasons: First, Boeing skipped a few numbers and called this version the '-8' because they wanted to signal to customers that this airplane shares many of the technological improvements developed for the 787 Dreamliner project.
The second reason is a little less obvious. For many Chinese people, the number '4' is considered an unlucky number, whereas the number '8' is a lucky number. China has become, and will continue to be, one of the largest markets for the purchase of commercial airliners. To satisfy this, in the last 5-10 years both Boeing and Airbus have tried to incorporate the number '8' into the numbering of their airplanes, while avoiding the number '4' (the first version of Airbus's A380 has been designated as the -800 version; Airbus's forthcoming A350 will be available in -800, -900R, and -1000 variants; and Boeing's 787 Dreamliner will be offered in -800, -900, and -300 versions).
Photos:
Boeing 747-200
Boeing 747-300
Boeing 747-400
Airbus A340-600
