How the 797 Could Kill Southwest

just recently southwest airlines placed its largest aircraft order ever after weeks of speculation the texas-based carrier reaffirmed their long-time commitment to boeing by ordering hundreds of 737 max sevens while this deal was largely seen as a win for both boeing and the airline the fact of the matter is that southwest didn't really have much of a choice here and the deal actually serves as a stark warning about the future of the carrier because this deal is a sign that southwest is ill-equipped to make an eventual transition to the 797 let me explain real quick i just celebrated my two year anniversary on youtube it's been an incredible couple of years being able to share my passion with all 60 000 of you has truly been one of the most rewarding things i've ever done now i've got big plans for year three and my goal is to hit a hundred thousand subscribers by this time next year so if you want to help me get there please hit that subscribe button it would really mean the world to me thanks in order to better understand why southwest is so ill-equipped for a post 737 world we need to better understand its operating model the airline primarily operates point-to-point meaning they connect secondary cities rather than routing passengers through hubs these routes tend to see lower passenger volume on average so to serve them profitably southwest leans on smaller planes today they're the world's largest operator of the 737 700 the smallest 737 ng variant which seats about 140 passengers and of the 680 planes in their fleet about 70 of them are the 700. now the max 7 is the natural replacement for this plane it's the exact same size but it has more efficient engines and winglets but prior to the steel the max 7 was very much the black sheep of the family of the 4 100 maxes that were in bowing's backlog just 52 of them were for the max 7. now there is good reason why airlines have shied away from this plane compared to other max variants it is the least economical on a per se basis thanks to issues with airframe optimization as i've mentioned before when a new aircraft family is being developed one of its variants will act as a reference design essentially engineers will optimize the plane's proportions including wing length and engine size around one specific variant from there they'll either stretch or shrink its fuselage to round out the family this stretching and squeezing helps the plane to fill as many niches as possible but it does result in performance penalties and in general these penalties will disproportionately affect the shrunken variants they are more prone to being overweight since their engines and wings are copied over from a bigger plane and as a result they tend not to sell as well now the mat 7 is the smallest member of the max family so you'd expect it to be less popular however its sales have been particularly bad comprising just one percent of all max orders before southwest stepped in you see this plane took what was already an overweight design in the 737-700 and made it more overweight its engines the leap 1b are about 11 more efficient than the cfm56s they're replacing but to achieve those gains they need to be bigger and thus heavier a pair of leaf 1bs weighs about 2 000 pounds more than a pair of cfm56s which adds the equivalent of about 12 adult passengers to the plane's dry mass for the larger better optimized max variance this extra weight isn't that big of a deal but for the smaller max 7 this significantly detracts from its efficiency gains while the 737 max 8 is estimated to be about 13 more efficient than the 737 800 the max 7 is only about 8 to 10 percent more efficient than the 737 700. okay so how does this all relate back to the 797. specifically why would the 797 present a problem for southwest well it's not exactly a secret that boeing really needs to outright replace both the 737 and 757 families in the immediate future but launching two new programs simultaneously would be much too capital intensive since the 737 and 757 are fairly close in capacity a new 797 which could debut in the mid-2030s is likely to split the difference and try to replace both the family is likely to include several variants that seat anywhere from 180 passengers up to 230 allowing it to eventually replace the wildly popular 737 max 8 while also delivering a compelling new mid-market jet for most airlines this move would be quite welcome but for southwest it would be a complete unmitigated disaster again southwest showed just how important a 150-seat plane is to their operating model by making a huge commitment to the sub-optimal max 7. this deal is a strong indication that southwest is too reliant on small 737s and once boeing's next generation narrowbody hits the market without a 150c variant it will likely leave the airline without a clear way to modernize their fleet moving forward but if that's the case why doesn't southwest just order something like the a220 when it's time to retire their maxes for one airbus has committed to the plane long term and will likely build a neo variant at some point what's more the a220 300 has a range and capacity that's nearly identical to the max 7. and finally there were actually rumors that southwest was exploring an a220 order earlier this year before they doubled down on the max but if you know anything about southwest you know that fleet commonality is kind of their thing now i've covered this topic in detail in a previous video which i'll link both in the upper right and in the video description but in short the carrier has only ever flown aircraft in the 737 family that way it can keep training and maintenance costs to a minimum while maximizing flexibility when it comes to route planning bringing the a220 into the fold would significantly disrupt this seamless operation and it's probably why they went with the max 7 in the first place even though the a220 300 appears a more capable jet now i know what some of you are thinking well once the 737 is discontinued southwest is gonna have to break fleet commonality anyway so what's the big deal and yeah that is a fair point but a commitment to a new airbus narrow body would be much more disruptive than going with the 797 when boeing does design the 797 they're likely to keep the cockpit fairly similar to the 737 that way existing 737 customers will have an easier time transitioning their fleet they've actually done this before the 787 cockpit shares much in common with the triple seven and it takes just five days for triple seven pilots to get their 787 type rating in comparison if a triple seven pilot wanted to change their type rating to an a350 it would take several months incurring much greater cost for the airline so while southwest would still have to train hundreds of pilots on a new 797 the process would be much easier on top of that southwest has a robust history of working with boeing's maintenance network and the 797 would leverage much of that same network further decreasing long-term cost of ownership so it appears that southwest is going to have to choose from one of three unsavory options moving forward one they can continue operating point-to-point but will have to do so with the plane in the 797 that's probably too big for many of their routes decreasing load factors and margins two they can change their operating model and operate more flights through hubs breaking from what they've done for the past 50 years or three they can undergo a radical shift and purchase airbus narrow bodies completely uprooting their boeing alliance and incurring plenty of additional overhead costs the good news is that southwest has plenty of time to figure it out its newly purchased max 7s will reliably serve for 15 to 20 years no sweat so this isn't likely to become much of a problem until around 2040. what's more southwest is one of the savviest airlines ever and i've praised this savviness before but solving this problem will be a tall task and it will require a complete rethinking of how they conduct their business so southwest really ought to start figuring it out sooner rather than later so what do you guys think do you agree that the 797 is going to present a problem for southwest leave your thoughts down in the comments i'll stick around there to debate anyone who disagrees thank you so much to my patrons for helping to make this video possible if you want to join the patreon community and help this channel to grow go ahead and check out this link right here and as always if you learned something new today leave a like and subscribe to keep learning and until i see you again don't forget to look up

Channel: Coby Explanes

Views: 631,183

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Id: ZvLzWIndfLQ

Length: 10min 28sec (628 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 09 2021