Why Did KLM Choose the A350 Over the 787?

KLM is the oldest Airline on Earth it's also one of the most esteemed proving a vital way of connecting Europe to the world for years Boeing and Airbus have fought to sell KLM new planes and so far Boeing has absolutely dominated nearly all of klm's Fleet is American made so when news broke that KLM wanted to upgrade its long-haul Fleet everyone expected them to purchase the 787 but last week they made the stunning decision to order the Rival a350 instead so why the hard pivot why is KLM building its future Fleet around Airbus instead of Boeing let me explain foreign now before hopping into it I'm approaching my one year anniversary of doing YouTube full time it's been an incredible ride I've been able to travel the world meet all sorts of cool people and also elevate my content for all of you but the whole thing has been way more stressful than I had ever imagined because I'm now my own boss I feel like I am constantly working which is completely messed up my work-life balance plus 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giving better help a shot doing so really helps to support my work and it can also help to support your mental health too first let's briefly cover the history of KLM in 2004 KLM merged with Air France forming one of the world's largest airline groups but unlike some other recent airline mergers like United continental and Delta Northwest Air France and KLM have kept their brands separate while the two share a board of directors Who oversee things like strategic Direction and financial management their corporate identities like Crews and root networks all remain distinct so too have their Fleet of aircraft which looked nothing alike Air France has leaned heavily towards Airbus and KLM favors Boeing now once an airline is entrenched in either the Boeing or Airbus ecosystem it's very unlikely they'll leave staying loyal to one manufacturer has a number of benefits like Fleet commonality easier maintenance and influence over future aircraft design so when the world learned that Air France KLM was planning to upgrade their fleets many thought they'd stay in their Lanes Air France would get Airbus Jets and KLM would get bowings specifically early rumors suggested that Air France would purchase the a350 while KLM would purchase the 787-10 so it caught just about everyone by surprise when the group announced their true intentions last week they'll be purchasing up to 90 a350s and those Jets will be going to both Air France and KLM this leaves Boeing and the 787-10 in the dust so what happened what's behind this pivot to Airbus well in a recent conversation with Bloomberg Ben Smith the CEO of Air France KLM group revealed three key motives behind the decision first up is range the a350 family can fly between 1800 and 20 2200 nautical miles further than the 787-10 this endurance is critical if KLM wants to keep flying to places like South America and South Africa which can't be reached by the Boeing the recent conflict in Ukraine has also played a role here ever since Russia invaded its airspace has been closed to European carriers including KLM and since Russia sits smack dab between Europe and Asia flights between the two regions have been disruptive any carrier who wants to fly these missions has to take absurdly long detours none being more famous than thin Air's 14-hour polar route between Helsinki and Tokyo now the straight line distance between say Amsterdam and Tokyo is only about 5 000 nautical miles well within the range of the 787-10 but these new restrictions have added nearly a thousand miles to the journey if you factor in unfavorable weather and wins you're quickly butting up against the limits of what the dash 10 can do so if these restrictions over Russian airspace persist which it seems like they will it's wiser for KLM to acquire the longer range a350 which can reach the Far East no matter what the conditions the second major factor that Smith points to is price pricing always plays a significant role when purchasing aircraft at the a350 appears to be more price competitive than the dash 10. according to air Insight the starting price for the a35900 is about 20 million dollars less than the 787-10 when you multiply this figure across 50 aircraft those savings amount to a billion dollars if you also include the 40 options that Air France KLM have those savings balloon to nearly 2 billion dollars now the caveat here is that Airlines almost never pay full price for new planes especially when buying in bulk so these saving estimates probably aren't super accurate but even so insiders say that Airbus got super aggressive when it came to pricing on this deal and the price was good enough to entice KLM to switch their allegiance the third reason behind klm's decision is availability at the time the deal was struck Airbus had fewer unfilled orders for the a350 than Boeing did for the 787. what's more Airbus is currently building more a350s per month than Boeing is building 787s the upshot is that KLM can get their hands on the Airbus quicker with first delivery expected in 2026. even if Boeing's backlog were the same size or even smaller than airbuses there's no guarantee that KLM would have received new Dreamliners anytime soon that's because in recent years Boeing has really struggled to build 787s the program has suffered a number of quality control issues which at one point entirely froze 787 production and while Boeing has worked diligently to rectify these issues they aren't totally out of the woods yet only a few months ago well Boeing discovered a new production flaw that's further delayed delivery of roughly a hundred new Dreamliners long story short 787 customers still aren't totally sure of when they'll get their hands on new Jets and considering KLM wants to renew their Fleet sooner rather than later this almost certainly played a role so those are the three primary reasons that KLM has pivoted to Airbus and on the surface this seems like nothing but bad news for Boeing they've lost a major deal and they've lost a major customer in the process but if you look closely there may be a silver lining here you see leadership at Air France KLM originally said that the a350 900 a3501000 787-10 and triple 7-9 would all be considered for their future Fleet now that the dust has settled we know the group is buying both types of a350 and has firmly passed on the 787-10 but what about the triple 7-9 their reasons for buying the a350 are mainly a referendum on the 787-10 not the triple 7x so could there still be a place in klm's Fleet for that big Boeing well the more you think about it the more sense it seems to make after all KLM was once a heavy user of the 747 400 and it's never fully regained its lost capacity while the a350 1000 is certainly a large plane the triple 7-9 is a closer one-to-one replacement for the 747 and the need for a plane of this size is only growing skipple airport which is klm's Hub is heavily slot restricted and the Dutch government is actively trying to cap the total number of aircraft movements at the airport aiming for a 400 160 000 movements per year down from the five hundred thousand that happened today now this move has received a lot of pushback but if it ends up going into effect KLM may need even bigger planes to help keep capacity up while aircraft movements go down so how can we actually figure out if the triple 7x is still in the cards for KLM well the airline might give us a clue when they announce how their a350 order is being allocated well we do know how many a350s the carrier is buying we don't know how many of each variant they're taking just that they plan to receive a mix of 900s and one thousands if it turns out that the order is composed mostly of the smaller 900 variant it may point to the airline's intent to buy the higher capacity triple 7-9 down the road conversely if the allocation skews more towards the bigger 1000 it would reduce the need for the is Boeing and diminish the chance of a future order so at the end of the day we're all just gonna have to wait and see if Boeing ever gets another shot at taking a piece of the KLM pie so what do you guys think did Air France KLM make the right decision by buying all Airbus or should they have ordered some bowing Jets too let me know your thoughts in the comment section below thank you so much to my patrons for helping to make this video possible if you like what I do and want to help the channel 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: 322,231

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Id: 36tPQN38U7E

Length: 11min 44sec (704 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 06 2023