Global major commercial aircraft leasing company Air Lease Corporation has warned Boeing that the airframer must “get its house in order” regarding problems concerning the Boeing 787 production line. Until it does, the lessor would not be interested in buying any new type that manufacturer might wish to develop. 

The warning was issued by Air Lease president and CEO John Plueger in an investors’ call on Tuesday. He said that there appeared to have been a mushrooming of issues on the 787 production line. These were now significantly delaying deliveries to Air Lease’s customers. In some cases these delays were as long as almost 12 months. If delays reached 12 months, Air Lease and its customers both had the right to cancel their orders with Boeing. And Air Lease had cancelled 737 MAX orders last year, on precisely this basis. 

“The 787 delays are impacting us, as well as the rest of the delivery, the manufacturing process,” he highlighted. “Boeing has gone through a tremendously difficult time and while they certainly have made a lot of progress, the blunt truth is we need them to fix the remainder of their house before we have any interest in talking about new aircraft.”

The 787 was the first of the new-generation airliners, being manufactured predominantly from composite materials. It is a twin-jet widebody aircraft. (Airbus’ counterpart was the A350XWB; the two types employ totally different manufacturing philosophies.) Although deliveries of the 787 were slowed by the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, there have also been reports of structural concerns regarding the aircraft’s aft body fuselage section. The result has been an increasing number of inspections of the type.

“As of yet, today, it is difficult to see a definitive fix that is agreeable by the aviation authorities and all going forward,” stated Plueger. “I think the goal, of course, is to do a lot of engineering work to determine that the aircraft are on a used-as-is basis.”

Air Lease executive chairperson Steven Udvar-Hazy added that, given that the aviation industry was facing its most difficult years since the end of the Second World War, he doubted if Boeing could currently develop any new types, whether a successor to its 737 or a middle-of-the-market aircraft to replace its 757 and 767 models. He further pointed out that Airbus’ A321LR and A321XLR now filled part of that middle-of-the-market segment.

Air Lease Corporation owned 332 aircraft on December 31, 2020, and managed another 81, including both Boeing and Airbus types, which it leased to 112 operators in 60 countries. Of the models owned by Air Lease, 51.2% came from Airbus and 48.5% from Boeing (the remaining 0.3% being accounted for by Embraer). The Boeing 787 accounted for 8.8% of the total, divided into 23 787-9s (7%) and six 787-10s (1.8%).