Avolon Buys 75 Boeing 737 MAX 8s Plus Options For 50 More

Aircraft leasing company, Avolon, announced that it had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to purchase 75 Boeing 737 MAX 8 jets Tuesday at the 2017 Paris Air Show.

The order also includes purchase options for an additional 50 737 MAX 8 jets and is worth $8.4 billion at list prices. Deliveries will begin in 2021.

Avolon already had outstanding orders for 10 737 MAX 8s and 10 737 MAX 9s. So this MoU once confirmed will grow its MAX order book to 95 frames in all, making it the fifth largest lessor customer of the MAX jet (edging out Aviation Capital Group who claimed that spot earlier Tuesday morning). Avolon also has an outstanding order for 20 Airbus A320neos placed back in December 2012.

The order was announced at a press conference by Ihssane Mounir, Boeing’s SVP of Global Sales & Marketing, Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Kevin McAllister, and Avolon CEO Dómhnal Slattery.

The relationship between Boeing and Avalon is very special, said McAllister. Today is a very special day, for an important reason.

Today Avolon will announce a memorandum of understanding for 75 737 MAX-8 plus options for 50 more. We are proud to play an important role in Avolon’s future.

Slattery added that Avolon, today with this MOU, is at 925 aircraft, which is extraordinary considering we didn’t exist 8 years ago. This is a super airplane, an airplane that we’ve believed in for a long time.

This order represents the single largest order that Avolon has placed with Boeing to date and underlines the scale of our ambition and the strength of our business.

Our strategy is to maintain an industry-leading portfolio of young, modern and fuel efficient aircraft.

We were pleased to deliver the world’s first ever 737 MAX 8 this year and the addition of a further 75 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft reflects our commitment to our customers to have a product offering built around the most technically advanced and efficient aircraft available in the market.

Slattery also said that the recently launched 737 MAX-10 looks like a real winner and Avolon will be taking a hard look at it.

Avolon’s MoU once confirmed will take the 737 MAX family over 4,000 firm orders, along with other orders announced at PAS.

By the same metric, Boeing now has won 909 orders from aircraft lessors for the 737 MAX against 1,136 for Airbus’ A320neo family including current MoUs.

PAS 2017 has helped Boeing close that gap from a deficit of 718 versus 1,024 prior to the show.

Continuing to sell to aircraft lessors is important for the 737 MAX, as they are the only customers willing to commit to large volumes of planes all at once in the current market environment.

Individual airlines that are profitable in developed markets such as the U.S. or Japan) face investors that are skeptical of large capital expenditure outlays.

Meanwhile, airlines in developing markets are facing down growth slowdowns and already have tons of Airbus and Boeing narrowbodies on order.

Exacerbating all of this is the post-2014 drop in fuel prices, which makes current generation aircraft more economical to operate and reduces the impetus for new purchases of the 737 MAX and A320neo whose cost savings mostly come from fuel burn reductions.

Small orders for 10-15 jets are still possible, but larger ones like SpiceJet’s 40 and Lion Air’s 50 are few and far in between. The one group of customers that can credibly order by large volumes of aircraft, however, is aircraft lessors, as they don’t need to sustain 75 MAX jets (as an example) with just one airline.

Instead, they can lease 10-15 aircraft to 5-6 different airlines, which makes them the likely primary source for big ticket MAX and neo orders over the next 12-18 months.

FRANCE: Ryanair And Boeing Conclude 10 737 MAXs Order At 2017 Paris Air Show

Boeing and Ryanair finalized an order for 10 additional 737 MAXs at the 2017 Paris Air Show. The order is valued at more than $1.1 billion at current list prices.

The Irish low-cost carrier now has 110 unfilled orders with 100 options for the higher capacity 737 MAX 8, as well as 65 Next-Generation 737-800s.

We are pleased to announce this purchase of 10 additional Boeing 737 ‘Gamechanger’ aircraft, on top of our existing firm order for 100 737 MAXs, with a further 100 options remaining, said Ryanair’s Chief Operations Officer, Mick Hickey.

This all new MAX 737 aircraft has 8 more seats than our current 189 seat Boeing 737-800s and incorporates the latest technology engines and winglets which reduces fuel consumption and noise emissions, ensuring we remain Europe’s greenest, cleanest airline. Ryanair is proud to partner with Boeing and has operated an all-Boeing fleet since 1994.

Ryanair is an all-Boeing operator and launched the higher capacity 737 MAX 8 in late 2014 with an order for 100 airplanes.

The airplane will provide Ryanair with 197 seats, increasing revenue potential and providing airlines like Ryanair with up to 16 percent better fuel efficiency per seat than today’s most efficient single-aisle airplanes.

The 737 MAX with 197 seats provides Ryanair with the perfect solution for its additional capacity requirements as it strives to carry 200 million passengers per year by the middle of the next decade, said Ihssane Mounir, senior vice president, Global Sales & Marketing, Boeing Commercial Airplanes.

The 737 family has been the foundation on which Ryanair has revolutionized low-cost travel in Europe and we are honored that this iconic operator continues to grow in partnership with Boeing.

Ryanair carried 120 million passengers last year with 1,800 daily flights to more than 200 destinations. The Dublin based carrier is the largest 737-800 customer in the world and the largest Boeing operator in Europe.

In March this year Ryanair took delivery of its 450th Next-Generation 737-800 and with today’s announcement has ordered a total of more than 640 airplanes from Boeing.

The 737 MAX family has been designed to offer customers exceptional performance, flexibility and efficiency, with lower per-seat costs and an extended range that will open up new destinations in the single-aisle market.

The MAX 8 and 9 will be followed in 2019 by the smaller MAX 7 and higher capacity MAX 8. The MAX 10 will be introduced in the 2020 time frame.

The 737 MAX incorporates the latest technology CFM International LEAP-1B engines, Advanced Technology winglets and other improvements to deliver the highest efficiency, reliability and passenger comfort in the single-aisle market.