Australia’s Qantas Airways had been struggling for profits and has not paid a dividend since 2009. The airline posted a record profit of $1.52 billion in the year ended June 2016, and now it may be looking to add to its current order for eight 787 Dreamliners from Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA).
Qantas is scheduled to take delivery of its first Dreamliner late next year. Airline CEO Alan Joyce told Bloomberg TV on Tuesday that the company would like to exercise its options and purchase rights for an additional 45 of the planes, but it depends:
I’d like to order all of them if I can make a good return out of them. This aircraft’s technology is going to change the game for Qantas.
The change will come at the expense of Airbus. Qantas currently flies 12 of the company’s A380 superjumbo jets, but recently deferred an order for eight more. Joyce said that Qantas likes the 12 A380s it has, but the airline does not see a need for any more.
While that is good news for Boeing, the company also took a bit of hit on Monday when India’s Jet Airways asked the company to delay delivery of 10 787s from 2017 to 2019. The airline placed the order for the new planes in 2006, according to a report at the Puget Sound Business Journal.
Jet plans to replace the 787s with 10 Boeing 777s that it has leased to Turkish Airlines and Etihad that will be coming off lease in the same time frame. The leases were made when the price of jet fuel was much higher than it is today, and the Indian airline believes that it can operate the older planes profitably in the current fuel price environment.
The deferral is not expected to affect Boeing’s 12-per-month production of the 787, but it may have some impact on the company’s wavering plan to jump that number to 14 per month next year. As of mid-August, the aircraft maker has booked just 20% of the wide-body orders it had forecast for 2016.
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