Originally Posted by
Flytolive
The 787s will be replacing the 772s and there are very few routes that need the 77Xs, but buying a few of them rather than 45 359s saves the relatively huge expense of adding a whole new fleet. Kirby puts the odds of taking the 359s at only 20%.
Maybe but right now the 787-9 doesn’t carry as much as the 777-200er and -10 doesn’t have the range. If you put a -9 on Ord-hkg or Ewr-hkg as an example you are leaving a lot of revenue behind. So it all boils down to revenue lost vs cost of new airframe.