United Airlines unveiled on Tuesday its largest-ever aircraft order: 270 narrow-body jetliners from both Boeing and Airbus as the carrier looks to its post-pandemic growth.
The fleet plan is central to United’s goal of capturing more travellers, particularly high-paying ones at major coastal hubs like San Francisco and Newark, New Jersey.
The order is for Boeing 737 MAX jets, and A321neo aircraft (in addition to the existing A321XLR order placed by United) and will help the airline expand in hubs like Denver and Chicago that have annual systemwide growth of about 4% to 6% in the next few years.
Specifically, the order is for 200 Boeing MAX jets, 150 are MAX 10s, the largest in the family, with the other 50 being the MAX 8 variant, plus the 70 Airbus A321 jets.
The airline also announced a hiring spree that it expects to total about 25,000 employees for the new planes, including pilots, flight attendants and mechanics.
The order shows United’s optimism about the recovery in air travel, which so far has been concentrated in domestic leisure flights in the United States.
United said on Monday it expects to post positive, adjusted pretax income next month for the first time since January 2020.
United and other airlines took $54bn in federal payroll aid in exchange for keeping workers employed during the pandemic. CEO Scott Kirby said the airline’s strategy that kept pilots trained and flying similar planes allowed it to be ready for the demand rebound.
Shares of Boeing and United were up less than 1% in late-morning trading.
The carrier now has about 500 narrow-body aircraft arriving starting next year, and confirmed that around 200 aircraft will be used to grow the airline’s fleet of 500 aircraft, while 300 will go to directly replace older jets such as its ageing Boeing 757-200s, which will retire from commercial airline service soon.
United CEO Kirby told media that he expects business and international travel demand to recover “100%”. He said business travel demand is still down 60% from pre-pandemic levels but has been improving.
“Such a significant order from a great airline like United underscores that the A321neo offers unmatched capabilities, operating economics, and passenger friendliness,” said Christian Scherer, Airbus chief commercial officer and head of International. “No other aircraft can do what the A321neo can do, and the Airbus team is most gratified by United’s strong affirmation of its premium status.
The A321neo will complement United’s future A321XLR aircraft, together creating a privileged segment on its own.”
United’s A321neo aircraft will feature Airbus’ Airspace cabin design, but the selling point from Airbus’ perspective remains its efficiency.
The aircraft currently has the lowest CO? emissions per seat in its class which Airbus say will support United along its journey to reduce the airline’s CO? emissions 100% by 2050.
A significant number of the newly ordered aircraft will be produced at the Airbus US Manufacturing Facility in Mobile, Alabama.
In other news this week, IAG Cargo, the cargo division of the International Airlines Group, completed its first sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) charter chain of 16 flights from Stuttgart to Atlanta last week.
Working with their partner Kuehne+Nagel, IAG Cargo sourced 1.2mn litres of Neste MY Sustainable Aviation Fuel from Neste.
This collaboration is believed to mark the first time that passenger-freighter charter flights are operated with net-zero carbon emissions.
Singapore Airlines’ low-cost subsidiary Scoot has welcomed its first three Airbus A321neo aircraft leased from BOC Aviation.
The budget carrier will deploy the aircraft on routes with flight times of up to six hours from Singapore, which is an hour longer than older-generation A320 aircraft.
One of three aircraft has already conducted its first flight from Singapore to Bangkok.
The airline has plans to operate the aircraft on Singapore-Cebu and Singapore-Ho Chi Minh City routes in August.
The aircraft has a single-class layout with a cabin based on the Airbus Cabin Flex option enabling operators to optimise space.
Scoot’s A321neo aircraft can carry 236 passengers, which is 50 seats more when compared with the previous-generation A320ceo and A320neo aircraft.
Elsewhere, in Greece, Aegean Airlines announced on Tuesday that it is doubling the value of the government’s discount scheme for vaccinated individuals, known as ‘Freedom Pass’. It’s an incentive to encourage young people to travel again, but after vaccination.
Young people aged between 18 and 25 who get vaccinated can acquire a Freedom Pass by August 31, 2021, and Aegean will offer additional euros for every euro spent purchasing a ticket, thus “doubling its value” according to the airline.
Finally, a new paper published in the Nature journal Communications Earth & Environment shows that burning SAFs further reduces the climate warming impact of flying because it produces less soot and ice particles when cruising, resulting in far fewer contrails, the cloud-like tracks airplanes leave in the air.
* The author is an aviation analyst. Twitter handle: @AlexInAir
Alex Macheras
