United Airlines orders 100 wide-body Boeing 787 jets

United Airlines plans to buy at least 100 Boeing 787 Dreamliner jets by 2032 as it replaces aging planes with newer, more fuel-efficient models and pursues international growth, the airline announced on Tuesday. The order, worth tens of billions of dollars at list prices, comes a little more than a year after United said it planned to buy 270 single-aisle planes — the largest purchase of US aircraft in a decade. The airline added a few dozen jets to that order on Tuesday and said it now expected to receive 700 new planes in all by the end of 2032, including an average of two planes per week next year and three planes per week in 2024. In addition to its firm order for 100 Dreamliners, with deliveries scheduled to begin in 2024, United has the option to buy 100 more. The airline’s decision is important for Boeing, which only recently resumed deliveries of the twin-aisle Dreamliner after a more than yearlong delay because of quality concerns, including filling paper-thin gaps in the plane’s body. Boeing has also been hindered by supply chain disruptions, inflation and other economic challenges. United said it chose Boeing over the rival plane maker Airbus because the airline is eager to grow and already has several dozen 787s as well as the pilots trained to fly them. The airline still has an order on the books to receive dozens of Airbus A350s, a 787 competitor, in 2030. “They’re both great airplanes,” United’s CE Scott Kirby said. “But we already have a large installed base of 787s. And in this world where we’re trying to bring on 2,500 pilots a year and grow the airline, introducing a new fleet type slows that down dramatically.”<br/>