Since they forecasted 300 aircraft, I wonder if they thought the airliner who already ordered it would take their option (lufthansa with 20 aircraft in option per example) or if emirates would get some of them since they were interested by it at some point (they got pitch in 2014 for 100 aircraft) or they thought that the company who already had the 400 would be interested to replace them with the 8i?

Thanks for the answer (kinda thinking of doing some what if using the revell/zvezda kit[already got the revell fanhansa for a advanced with a shortened nose])

they killed their big goose with their slightly smaller goose. 777-300ER

I recall it was EY ambitiously talking about a 100 748i's, not EK. Think Boeing had high hopes at the time for the Chinese to order in bulk and then distribute amongst their airlines but ended up with only that small CA order.

thebunkerparodi wrote:

Since they forecasted 300 aircraft, I wonder if they thought the airliner who already ordered it would take their option (lufthansa with 20 aircraft in option per example) or if emirates would get some of them since they were interested by it at some point (they got pitch in 2014 for 100 aircraft) or they thought that the company who already had the 400 would be interested to replace them with the 8i?

Thanks for the answer (kinda thinking of doing some what if using the revell/zvezda kit[already got the revell fanhansa for a advanced with a shortened nose])

There were around 700 744 built, yet they forecasted only 300 748. So probably they aimed at 744 operators who haven't ordered/didn't need the A380 at the time and cargo airlines, like NH, SV, GA, AI, PR, KL, SA, UA, etc.

Tbh, the fact that they even managed to sell pax 748 still surprises me. VLA is a very niche market and most who needed it already ordered A380. Even more, the "smaller than A380 but bigger than 744" market is even smaller.

I'm sure they expected EL AL for sure, and possibly BA. But in reality the 777-300ER killed it.

Emirates wanted a shorter 747-8I, with more range. decided to order the 777-300ER
BA, decided to go for a mix of A380's and 777-300ER aircraft
SIA, decided to go for a mix of A380's and 777-300ER aircraft
Cathay, decided to add the 777-300ER to the excisting 777-200/300 fleet, despite being a launch customer of the 747-8F
KLM, Boeing didn't want to invest in a 747-8I combi, KLM added the 777-300ER to the excisting 777-200ER fleet
NWA, merged in 2010 with AA.

See : https://www.flightglobal.com/emirates-c ... 01.article

yeah emirates criticised boeing for lenghtning the 8i but then they got pitched for 100 aircraft https://leehamnews.com/2015/02/04/exclu ... ng-747-8s/ Basically, klm would've prefer a combi and they other airlines that boeing thought would buy the aircraft decided to go for other stuff

My guess is that Boeing was HOPING that UA and DL, MIGHT be interested in a 20/25 frame fleet. With their LHR slots being so valuable for cargo and passengers along with Japan and China routes. But alas, it was not in the cards.

Looking back I am surprised that Amazon didn't order big numbers of freighters in time.
Having said that so many used 777-300ER will be on the market for conversion.

I would have loved Qantas to have replaced their 744s with 748i,s but they had made up their minds about the A380 while that plane was still on the drawing board. I think Boeing also wanted to end the 747s and concentrate on the 777. I wonder with the 777, like the 737, how many variants of the 777s can they develop ? OH I miss the Queen of the sky in all its variants.

there seem to have been somewhat of a competition between the 747 8i and A380 at british airways (wich inspired what if idea about the landor livery being adapted on the zvezda 8i, I got the decals sheet from the revell 400 box that I'm going to do in the qantas wunala dreaming livery).

You have to remember that the timing of the 747-8 was very bad.
The whole 747-8 design and certification process was severly delayed by the 787 introduction/ certification fiasco, leading to parallel design / certification of both aircraft types.
The shortage of engineering resources, caused by the massive engineering effort to get the 787 finally certificated, played a major role : It provided several airlines a few extra years to re-think their passenger fleet strategy (747-8I) or even the cancellation of freighter orders.
When the 747-8 was finally certified the cargo market was at an all time low (order cancellations !) and the 777-300ER was an establised 747-8I contender, many target airlines were operating already 777-200/300/200ER variants in their fleets.

by target airlines you mean the one boeing thought would order the 747 8i such as air france (who decided to go for the A380 over the 8i) or klm per example?

747classic wrote:

Emirates wanted a shorter 747-8I, with more range. decided to order the 777-300ER
BA, decided to go for a mix of A380's and 777-300ER aircraft
SIA, decided to go for a mix of A380's and 777-300ER aircraft
Cathay, decided to add the 777-300ER to the excisting 777-200/300 fleet, despite being a launch customer of the 747-8F
KLM, Boeing didn't want to invest in a 747-8I combi, KLM added the 777-300ER to the excisting 777-200ER fleet
NWA, merged in 2010 with AA.

See : https://www.flightglobal.com/emirates-c ... 01.article

Didn't NW merge with DL, not AA?

thebunkerparodi wrote:

by target airlines you mean the one boeing thought would order the 747 8i such as air france (who decided to go for the A380 over the 8i) or klm per example?

Target airlines = airlines with large (aging) 744 fleets to be replaced by 747-8I aircraft,

I wish the 747-8 was more of a success, but I clearly understand why the -8i variant in particular was a flop.

Some people were mentioning Emirates and the pax variant, but I think that they had about 10 -8Fs on order, cancelling 5 of them, and then cancelling the remaining 5 in late 2012.

747classic wrote:

thebunkerparodi wrote:

by target airlines you mean the one boeing thought would order the 747 8i such as air france (who decided to go for the A380 over the 8i) or klm per example?

Target airlines = airlines with large (aging) 744 fleets to be replaced by 747-8I aircraft,

ok ,so boeing thought that the airlines with a aging 747 400 fleet would orer the 8i, hence why they forcested 300 of them

thebunkerparodi wrote:

yeah emirates criticised boeing for lenghtning the 8i but then they got pitched for 100 aircraft https://leehamnews.com/2015/02/04/exclu ... ng-747-8s/ Basically, klm would've prefer a combi and they other airlines that boeing thought would buy the aircraft decided to go for other stuff

Why criticise for stretching? IIRC Boeing stretched the 747-8I version from 747-400 in such a way that it wouldn't over lap with the 777-300ER. But as we all know the 77W still ended up pretty much killing it with airline choosing it over the -8. If the 747-8I was any shorter I'd say 0 total orders is a likely order book for it.

there's this article from flight global https://www.flightglobal.com/emirates-q ... 20.article

I think it took too long to develop and the performance was less than hoped for - a little quicker and and a little better might have tipped the scale for several of the 744 airlines.

lifecomm wrote:

I think it took too long to develop and the performance was less than hoped for - a little quicker and and a little better might have tipped the scale for several of the 744 airlines.

Yes. The 748 was massively overweight from the start (was supposed to be 465k lb OEW, but even after a 10k reduction well after EIS, OEW was still 475K) and GE screwed up on the engines, requiring 2 PIP's. Also, sole sourcing the engines was a mistake and cost them orders.

747classic wrote:

NWA, merged in 2010 with AA.

NWA merged with DL, and it was officialized in 2008; 2010 was when the NWA name was retired.

The short answer is, every customer that ordered the A380 was a potential 748i customer too. The 748i was economical for Boeing (inexpensive investment, small risk), but expensive for the airlines in that the A380 had better economics, if they could fill it. That took 3 major 747 customers off the table: BA, QF, SQ.
SQ and BA in particular had to have been a huge blow for the 748i. BA didn't even order the 77W until after the A380 had been ordered which tells me that the choice was between the A380 vs. 748i rather than 748i vs 77W.

ok so qantas, singapore airline, ANA, air france were seen as potential 747 8i buyer by boeing.
PS: can someone explain the abreviation system please?

To sum up simply, those who had operated the 747-400, and currently operates 77W. Was definitely on Boeing's potential customer list.
I'd say many are in Asia, e.g. CX, JL, NH, SQ, CI, BR. In Europe, BA, AF comes to mind.
North America, I wouldn't say DL as they inherited the 747s from NW instead, maybe UA if I want to stretch the theory.
But market dynamics changed and both A380 and 748i was proven to be too big for these customers.

747classic wrote:

BA, decided to go for a mix of A380's and 777-300ER aircraft

My reading of the aviation press of the early 2000s (mostly AvWeek) was that Boeing really hoped BA would come onboard the 747-8i program and were really disappointed when they didn't. IIRC BA was the largest 747 operator with a fleet of ~50 at one point so it seemed to Boeing that their chances were good, but in reality it seems BA really never was that in to the 747-8 and always was into A380. The 777-300ERs were at first compensation for delayed 787s later in the decade, but then BA found that they worked quite well in their network so they ordered more, and in time also ordered 779s too.

747classic wrote:

You have to remember that the timing of the 747-8 was very bad.
The whole 747-8 design and certification process was severly delayed by the 787 introduction/ certification fiasco, leading to parallel design / certification of both aircraft types.
The shortage of engineering resources, caused by the massive engineering effort to get the 787 finally certificated, played a major role : It provided several airlines a few extra years to re-think their passenger fleet strategy (747-8I) or even the cancellation of freighter orders.
When the 747-8 was finally certified the cargo market was at an all time low (order cancellations !) and the 777-300ER was an establised 747-8I contender, many target airlines were operating already 777-200/300/200ER variants in their fleets.

All true.

thebunkerparodi wrote:

ok so qantas, singapore airline, ANA, air france were seen as potential 747 8i buyer by boeing.
PS: can someone explain the abreviation system please?

https://www.iata.org/en/publications/di ... de-search/

Here is a helpful website to explain airline/airport codes.

airbazar wrote:

The short answer is, every customer that ordered the A380 was a potential 748i customer too. The 748i was economical for Boeing (inexpensive investment, small risk), but expensive for the airlines in that the A380 had better economics, if they could fill it. That took 3 major 747 customers off the table: BA, QF, SQ.
SQ and BA in particular had to have been a huge blow for the 748i. BA didn't even order the 77W until after the A380 had been ordered which tells me that the choice was between the A380 vs. 748i rather than 748i vs 77W.

I think this is exactly correct. I wonder if BA would have been happier with 748s - maybe one of them would be returning to AUS next month...

lifecomm wrote:

I wonder if BA would have been happier with 748s - maybe one of them would be returning to AUS next month...

BA appears to be one of the relatively small number of airlines that use the advantages of the A388. They have only one hub and that hub is slot constrained with no hope of adding more slots any time soon, and they operate some really long routes that can take advantage of the A388's range. They also have a customer base that can/does buy premium seats. They never seemed all that interested in 748, much to Boeing's chagrin. As they recover from covid they are keeping A388 running while getting rid of 744. LH is an interesting contrast. They keep both FRA and MUC as hubs and already have 748 so they grounded A388 while planning to use both 748 and 744 as they recover. Both are 779 customers.

E90SLAM wrote:

To sum up simply, those who had operated the 747-400, and currently operates 77W. Was definitely on Boeing's potential customer list.
I'd say many are in Asia, e.g. CX, JL, NH, SQ, CI, BR. In Europe, BA, AF comes to mind.
North America, I wouldn't say DL as they inherited the 747s from NW instead, maybe UA if I want to stretch the theory.
But market dynamics changed and both A380 and 748i was proven to be too big for these customers.

I've seen an old thread on the forum showing that cathay evaluated the 8i

Would it really have been such a difficult task for Boeing to make a combi version for KLM ?

there's this flightglobal article showing that lufthansa had 20 more in option https://www.flightglobal.com/boeing-ann ... 75.article (wich make me wan to get revell old LH livery 747 8i to do one of these 20 option[I'll get the new one as well to do the red tail concept showed in the making off] )

Mortyman wrote:

Would it really have been such a difficult task for Boeing to make a combi version for KLM ?

Creating a mini subfleet for one airline would be impractical. Especially given that a combi would have different fire suppression, weight info, etc. Its not quite like building a new aircraft, but it’s not too far off. Maybe they’d have been interested if they had solid and confirmed interest from KL, AF, LH, BA, etc. but going through all that trouble for one airline to buy 5-10 frames isn’t worth it.

Aside from being able to carry more overall, and oversized/tall pieces, there’s really not that much benefit to such a huge combi these days either. You can fill a 77w with pax and still have plenty of space for pallets. Maybe if they’d known covid would hit, sure it could be practical for awhile. But still fills a role that’s done sufficiently by other aircraft.

And on a personal note, I always hated doing weight and balance on combis so good riddance I say!

Revelation wrote:

lifecomm wrote:

I wonder if BA would have been happier with 748s - maybe one of them would be returning to AUS next month...

BA appears to be one of the relatively small number of airlines that use the advantages of the A388. They have only one hub and that hub is slot constrained with no hope of adding more slots any time soon, and they operate some really long routes that can take advantage of the A388's range. They also have a customer base that can/does buy premium seats. They never seemed all that interested in 748, much to Boeing's chagrin. As they recover from covid they are keeping A388 running while getting rid of 744. LH is an interesting contrast. They keep both FRA and MUC as hubs and already have 748 so they grounded A388 while planning to use both 748 and 744 as they recover. Both are 779 customers.

Thinking about BA and the 748i, I came across this fun video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_yHtfGH0nI&t=3521s.

I'm sure that BA thought long and hard about the 748i and what it meant to leave the venerated platform and take on the a380. Clearly, BA has invested many, many millions of pounds in the 747 and I'm sure there were many people who wanted to keep going. But every good thing must come to an end...

was air india ever seen by boeing as a potential customer due to their 747 fleet or not (note that I don't know if their situation was bad or not whe boeing started the studies/launched the 747 8i)?

British Airways would have been the prize since they were operating a very large 747-400 fleet. I've heard that Boeing had the inside track, but Airbus and RR made a "too good to refuse" offer to win the business, but a forum member with BA Engineering has stated that the A380 was preferred over the 747-8 from the engineering and maintenance sides of the company so the truth is likely somewhere in the middle.

United and Japan Air Lines also had large active 747-400 fleets and were Boeing-exclusive at the time when it came to widebodies so I would expect they were considered important customers to land.

Below the "Big Three", I could see Cathay Pacific as another possible customer since they did have the 747-8 freighter and they had almost a score of 747-400. Same with Thai Airways International.

would thai airways count as a potantial customer for the 8i?