Artist’s impression of the Boeing 737MAX
Photo by: Boeing
South African airline group Comair has ordered eight future generation Boeing 737MAX airliners, for delivery in the period 2019/21, and has taken options on eight more. This was announced in Kempton Park, east of Johannesburg, on Wednesday.
The eight aircraft are worth $830-million, but the South African company, which operates two brands (British Airways in Southern Africa and low-cost carrier Kulula), is receiving a discount and so is paying less. The scale of the discount is a commercial secret.
This new order comes as Comair is still receiving the next generation 737-800s that it ordered in 2010. That order was also for eight aircraft, of which four have now been delivered. The remaining four 737-800s will be delivered in 2015 and 2016.
“It’s all been driven by fuel prices and exchange rates,” Comair CEO Erik Venter told Engineering News Online. “Operating costs are a priority today. These [737MAX] aircraft, although quite expensive, are efficient to operate.”
Comair’s cost index per aircraft has risen by 168% since 2001, but air fares have only increased by about 14%. “It is modernise or die,” he affirmed. “There is no alternative. We’re continuously upgrading, and have been since 1996/97.”
The 737MAX is not yet in operation and Comair has become the first airline in Africa to order the type. The first flight of the new type is scheduled for 2016 with deliveries to customers starting in 2017.
The 737MAX is powered by a new generation engine, the CFM LEAP-1B, the development of which is “right on schedule” CFM international executive VP Cédric Goubet reported at Wednesday’s announcement. The first flight tests of the new engine will be in the first quarter of next year. Comair’s order for 737MAXs naturally includes the 16 LEAP-1B engines that will power them.
In comparison to the current CFM56 engine, the LEAP-1B is 15% more fuel efficient and has nitrous oxide emissions that are 50% lower than Committee on Aviation Environmental Protection (CAEP) sixth meeting standards. (CAEP is an agency of the International Civil Aviation Organisation.)
The airframe of the 737MAX has aerodynamic improvements over the next generation 737 family, including winglets which employ laminar flow. The 737MAX also has a completely new cockpit.
In his address announcing the order, Venter highlighted that, since 2005, Comair had cut its fuel expenditure by 28% and the 737MAX would add 14% to that, taking it to a total saving of 42%. He pointed out that 92% of the company’s efficiencies were passed on to the customers and 8% to the bottom line. This was not altruism but kept passenger volumes up.
“Comair is investing in their future,” affirmed Boeing commercial airplanes VP: Africa, Latin America and Caribbean sales Van Rex Gallard to Engineering News Online. Because of the demand for the new aircraft, “[i]f you want to have the MAX early, you have to commit early. In the next five years, I see another ten operators for the MAX in Africa. This is the beginning of the MAX in Africa.”