Dream Order
July 9, 2007
Air Berlin said on Sunday that company CEO Joachim Hunold had inked the deal worth $4 billion (2.935 billion euros) at Boeing headquarters in Seattle in the US.
On top of the 25 orders, Air Berlin is securing 10 options and 15 purchasing rights for additional 787s, the company said. The first 25 planes will be delivered between 2013 and 2017, the company added.
Air Berlin's mega order, the single largest by any European carrier so far, came as Boeing unveiled its much-hyped 787 Dreamliner to 15,000 Boeing employees, suppliers and customers at its giant assembly plant in Everett in Washington on Sunday.
The Dreamliner, the first new Boeing airplane in more than a decade, costs between $146 million and $200 million and has bagged 677 orders worldwide.
Dreamliner boasts "green" credentials
Air Berlin said its order for 25 Dreamliners was aimed at swapping out its entire fleet in the future. Air Berlin planned to secure its long-haul capacity in the long term, CEO Hunold said in a press statement.
He added that Air Berlin had secured a significant price reduction for the planes without giving further details. The airliner, which says it is looking into several financing options, said payment for the jets must be ready by 2011.
Air Berlin has underscored the Dreamliner's "green" credentials in justifying its order. The aircraft boasts a series of fuel-efficient design features largely credited with filling Boeing's order books.
Air Berlin's Hunold emphasized that with the purchase of the 787 Dreamliners, his company "would make a significant contribution to protecting the environment beyond all theoretical discussions and legal impositions."
With the 787, the aviation industry proved that economically sound decisions could also be ecologically good, Hunold added.
The 787 will be the world's first commercial jetliner which does away with aluminum and makes use of carbon-fiber composites which are lighter and sturdier. Up to 50 percent of the plane -- including the fuselage and wing -- are made of carbon-fiber.
Boeing has also said that new technological advances will make the 787 more fuel-efficient and cheaper to maintain -- an alluring idea at a time of rising oil prices in the aviation sector.
"The airplane will use 20 percent less fuel for comparable missions than today's similarly sized airplane," Boeing said in a statement.
Boeing flying ahead of Airbus with Dreamliner
The 787, which has a seating capacity of between 210 and 300 seats, will go into service after European arch rival Airbus' mammoth A380 takes to the skies.
Some analysts say that Boeing has raced ahead of Airbus in the long-standing tussle between the two rivals with its ecologically-friendly 787 model. In response to Boeing's Dreamliner, Airbus has announced plans for a further new model, the A350. But the new plane is not expected to be ready for commercial use until 2013.
Richard Aboulafia from the aviation consultancy, Teal Group, told Deutsche Welle that Airbus' A350 is a promising model but the European airplane-maker had already spent too many funds on the A380.
"The transition will take a lot of time and above all, lots of work and money," he said.