Boeing’s 747: “The Energizer Bunny of airplanes”

How about that resilient 747? The picture shows the original Pan Am 747. Look back at post 9-11 (2001) passenger numbers. The 747 was on a respirator and gasping for life. Boeing was about to shut the production lines down. So here’s our first giant people-hauler on the way to the graveyard and, miracle of miracles, demand for big, transcontinental aircraft suddenly surged.

The 747-8, introduced a year ago, secured some cargo orders and seemed to be an “okay” offering from Boeing.  It was the ugly cousin of the Airbus A380 but it had its merits.  As a freighter, the 747-8 was to be a winner.  A few passenger orders trickled in and the line was set.

Of course we all know what happened next: The A380 became a victim of setbacks and delays. Airlines were now stuck with a very late Airbus or they could grab the 747-8 and get a few years ahead of the power curve. Boeing again was in the right place at the right time. Orders kept coming in. The 747-8 was now a true success story.

“The new 747 is an inexpensive way for Boeing to capture some passenger orders, a lot of cargo orders and make a fair amount of money because of the Airbus 380 hiccup,” said Jon B. Kutler, chief executive of Admiralty Partners, a private investment firm in Santa Monica, Calif., that specializes in aerospace.

The 747-8 is even being sold and outfitted by Boeing as a private jet. These private versions carry a list price of about $275 million. Boeing does not identify its customers, but most in the aviation world say the orders are probably coming from people in the Middle East. They historically have been buyers of Boeing jets for private use.

Airbus, which has lost all freighter orders for its A380 to Boeing, has felt the heat. Allan McArtor, chairman of Airbus North America, called the new 747-8 a brand-new Edsel, the famous new-car failure of the late 1950s. “The 747 is on its last legs,” Mr. McArtor said in an interview. “It doesn’t have any legs to stand on. Boeing is trying to breathe life into a 1960s-era design. There is only so much you can do with a plane.”

Boeing, of course, has a different view of the plane. “The 747 is a plane that is tough to beat,” said Dan Mooney, Boeing’s vice president for the 747 program. “The 747 will do what our customers are looking forward to. We now have a plane that works for them.”

Today’s 747, of course, is not the same as the one flown in the 1970s. The first version, the 747-100, featured a piano bar on the upper deck. Today’s 747-8, which will be delivered in 2009, is longer, faster and will carry over 100 more passengers than earlier models. At Mach 0.855, about 570 miles per hour, the 747-8 will be the fastest commercial plane in the sky. It can also fly 8,000 nautical miles nonstop, compared with 4,500 nautical miles for the original version.

Boeing has produced a total of 1,379 747s to date and has a backlog of 91 orders. “The 747 has turned into the Energizer bunny of airplanes,” said Byron Callan, an aviation analyst with Prudential Equities Securities.

In a matter of just a few years, the market positions of the A380 and the 747 have switched. The A380 has gone from being the plane of the future to the one in trouble. The 747, meanwhile, moved from being an also-ran to a real competitor.

“One would have never thought that Boeing could have gotten a lot of orders for the 747,” said Paul Nisbet, an aerospace analyst at JSA Research in Newport, R.I. “But they will turn out enough to give Airbus some real heartburn with the A380.”

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