Originally Posted by
VacancyBid
For all the noise Kirby made about the Max10 ... there's no way to replace them with 32X series even if they shake a couple dozen delivery slots out of the world. Only place that might have capacity is the 220 line.
Would United go for a big 220 order to get scope relief and ditch Boeing?
Short answer is no. But... Airbus needs to get A220 volume production up much higher to bring production costs down and get the program to overall profitability. There's been a lot of speculation about an A220-500 stretch, which would be a 737-8 and 320NEO killer. Airbus has been reluctant to cannibalize future 320NEO sales... but if they can barely produce enough 321s to meet orders over the next decade it might actually make sense to move on from the 320NEO with a big A220-500 launch customer. And of course, our CRJ-550s and ERJs will not last forever either and there is nothing remotely on the horizon to replace the CRJs at least. We could probably start delivieries of A220-100s and 300s in about two years while wait on -500 certification. In the meantime, we could make pretty much all our future MAX deliveries -9s or bigger to keep average gauge about the same as planned.
I think a much more likely scenario is a nice BA discount, on the 777X I hope.