United sees Dreamliner order giving it control of fleet growth plan
United Airlines’ recent order for more Boeing 787-9s reflects the airline seeking to lock in its growth opportunity amid a backdrop of sliding aircraft deliveries. The Star Alliance carrier earlier this month placed an order for 50 further Dreamliners, together with another for 60 more Airbus A321neos for delivery from 2028 onwards. Speaking during United’s third quarter results call on 18 October, the airline’s chief financial officer Michael Leskinen said: "With the delays in the supply chain, they’ve become persistent. And so part of what we’re doing is controlling skyline for a longer period of time than we have historically. "This industry has been an industry that has in the past gone from putting out fire to fire and [our] United Next strategy is putting us on a firmer footing to plan for the longer term. The contractual delivery dates, they’ve been pushing to the right. And we’ll probably continue to see that. And you see us – as you see us playing internally, we’ll have some expectation of continued slipping,” he says. ”But make no mistake, we will make adjustments to the order book and the delivery times in a way that maximises the returns to our shareholders.” United’s CCO Andrew Nocella adds that the fresh widebody order also reflects the carrier’s confidence in its strategy to continue growing its international business in the long-term. ”It’s really our confidence in our plan, but its particularly our confidence that we are going to increasingly pivot in the latter part of the decade to global growth and not domestic growth,” he says. ”So we secured those positions, we are confident we will use them.” He points to the likely retirement of its Boeing 767s ”at some point” later this decade. ”So with the number of retirements we have, the confidence in our plan – and some of the OEM issues – it just made sense,” Nocella says. ”2028 and beyond is a long time away, but we are really confident in the plan, confident of global growth, we will have to lean into that and we want to lean into that in the latter part of the decade,” he adds.<br/>
https://portal.staralliance.com/cms/news/hot-topics/2023-10-20/star/united-sees-dreamliner-order-giving-it-control-of-fleet-growth-plan
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United sees Dreamliner order giving it control of fleet growth plan
United Airlines’ recent order for more Boeing 787-9s reflects the airline seeking to lock in its growth opportunity amid a backdrop of sliding aircraft deliveries. The Star Alliance carrier earlier this month placed an order for 50 further Dreamliners, together with another for 60 more Airbus A321neos for delivery from 2028 onwards. Speaking during United’s third quarter results call on 18 October, the airline’s chief financial officer Michael Leskinen said: "With the delays in the supply chain, they’ve become persistent. And so part of what we’re doing is controlling skyline for a longer period of time than we have historically. "This industry has been an industry that has in the past gone from putting out fire to fire and [our] United Next strategy is putting us on a firmer footing to plan for the longer term. The contractual delivery dates, they’ve been pushing to the right. And we’ll probably continue to see that. And you see us – as you see us playing internally, we’ll have some expectation of continued slipping,” he says. ”But make no mistake, we will make adjustments to the order book and the delivery times in a way that maximises the returns to our shareholders.” United’s CCO Andrew Nocella adds that the fresh widebody order also reflects the carrier’s confidence in its strategy to continue growing its international business in the long-term. ”It’s really our confidence in our plan, but its particularly our confidence that we are going to increasingly pivot in the latter part of the decade to global growth and not domestic growth,” he says. ”So we secured those positions, we are confident we will use them.” He points to the likely retirement of its Boeing 767s ”at some point” later this decade. ”So with the number of retirements we have, the confidence in our plan – and some of the OEM issues – it just made sense,” Nocella says. ”2028 and beyond is a long time away, but we are really confident in the plan, confident of global growth, we will have to lean into that and we want to lean into that in the latter part of the decade,” he adds.<br/>
