Boeing is rethinking its twin-wide-body strategy, weighing whether to move forward with a 787-10 or even to fill that market segment with a member of an entirely new aircraft family.

The 787-10, although not formally launched, would be a double-stretch of the basic 787-8 and the top end of that aircraft family. But Boeing Commercial Airplanes President Scott Carson says the paramount consideration now is whether the double-stretch concept makes sense, or if it would be more expedient to meet that market demand in another way. The alternative is to make that particular seat-count the bottom end of the product line that will eventually replace the current 777 wide-body family.

The 787-10 has notionally been viewed as an aircraft with a 310-seat capacity, and aimed at replacing the 777-200ER. At one point, Boeing indicated the decision to proceed with the 787-10 was merely a matter of when, not if. But delays in developing the 787-8 and 787-9 appear to have weakened that certitude. One factor is timing; the 787-10 now would not emerge until later in the decade anyway, losing any jump on the competition the product might otherwise have had. Moreover, prospective customers sense that the -10 would require significant wing and engines changes from the smaller 787s, thereby undermining benefits of commonality.

Carson says Boeing is in no rush to commit to firm decisions on the future product line, but he indicates that choices will be made in "a couple of years."

The new product family would likely reach up to 425 seats, and therefore offer more capacity than 777s and close any gap that might exist between the company's big twin-widebodies and the 747-8 now in development.

Airbus, with its A350 development program, has sized the aircraft to attack not just the 787, but also the 777 family. Although the A350 fuselage is smaller than the 777, Airbus chief operating officer for customers, John Leahy, has described the A350-900 as a "777-200ER killer." The A350-10, the third aircraft in the family to come to the market, is aimed to compete with the 777-300ER.

Carson, however, says the company is "not threatened" by Airbus activities. And, he adds, before any 777 replacement is launched, Boeing will continue with product upgrades to its popular widebody. Where possible, technologies being introduced in the 787 will be folded into the 777 in areas of structure, systems and engines, Carson suggests. Boeing currently has a 777 backlog of around 360 aircraft, almost two-thirds of which are for the -300ER.

Timing is being calculated and watched and measured across the board. The 777-replacement family will likely emerge late next decade. With Airbus not expected to field its A350-1000 until at least late-2015, Boeing seems confident that its schedule for fielding a superior entrant could work out well.

Other factors being carefully monitored include potential evolutions of the rival A350. Randy Tinseth, Boeing's marketing vice president, says no decisions will be made on the near-term 777 improvement strategy until at least year's end; that's when Airbus expects to freeze the design of the A350-900. "We've got some time" to make decisions, he notes.

One of the challenges for the Seattle manufacturer will be finding the industrial resources to birth the twin-widebody in the same timeframe as the 737 replacement; both will require a large number of design engineers and development capital. After scrapping its 737 Replacement Study (RS), Boeing now doesn't expect the new short- and medium-range aircraft to emerge until late next decade. Carson notes the 737RS effort was halted because the 20% fuel-burn savings sought by airlines couldn't be reached, and Boeing wasn't going to launch a product offering with a mere 8% better efficiency (see p. 58).

Carson points out, though, that the company's main focus right now is on getting the production system healthy, which basically involves fixing 787-8 assembly problems that have repeatedly forced the aircraft maker to delay delivery commitments.

But Boeing is seeing signs that the 787 situation is stabilizing. Sections for the fourth 787 have now started to arrive at the Everett, Wash., production facility and show a far higher state of completion than earlier; the completion status has been the main reason the 787 program has been running behind. In fact, the fourth aft fuselage section arrived with a higher-than-expected completion status, says Tom Cogan, 787 chief engineer. For the same aircraft, Section 41, the forward fuselage portion, was 100% complete.

The power-on process has also been going more smoothly than planned, he says. Even though it's a multi-step process, the first day's progress covered 3-4 days of activity, he says.