ETHIOPIA: Ethiopian Airlines In $2 billion Dreamliner Deal

Ethiopian was Africa’s first Dreamliner customer, and is buying six of the planes.

BOEING Co. has sold the remainder of its early, overweight 787 Dreamliners that have been in storage for years to meet demand from buyers eager to obtain jetliners that are otherwise sold out through the end of the decade.

Ethiopian Airlines is acquiring six of the models in a transaction valued at £1.3 billion ($2.04 billion) at list prices, Boeing said in a statement on Wednesday.

Air Austral already agreed to buy two of the jets nicknamed “terrible teens” for their assembly struggles and places near the start of the 787’s production run.

“The Dreamliners complement the airline’s existing 13 787s currently operating in the fleet and are part of Ethiopian’s long-term strategy to increase capacity and provide greater route flexibility to and from its hub in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia,” Boeing said in the release.

The early-build aircraft had been symbols of the delays that clouded the start of Dreamliner programme and left Boeing struggling to profit from one of its best-selling models.

The teens had been parked for five years nose-to-tail on a taxiway near the planemaker’s Everett, Washington factory with black plastic shrouding their windows and 17,000-pound (7,700- kilogramme) counterweights dangling from the wings in place of engines to keep the jets balanced.

Late debut

The 787 is the world’s first airliner built mainly from composites instead of traditional aluminum. It debuted in 2011, more than three years late, as Boeing worked through kinks with its design, on-board systems and supply-chain.

The teens required extensive work, including heavy structural reinforcements to bolster their composite hulls, and were set aside while Boeing focused resources on later models that it could get more quickly to customers.

Once the modifications are completed, the planes’ range will be about 1,000 nautical miles (1,850 kilometers) shorter than the 7,850-mile range advertised by Boeing, Avitas has estimated. Passengers aren’t likely to notice since they’ll still feature the same creature comforts as other Dreamliners, including higher humidity to ease jet leg.