Emirates Airline president Tim Clark is “cautiously optimistic” about Boeing's prospects of delivering the long-delayed 777X jet by early 2027.
The Dubai-based carrier could receive its first wide-body plane between the third or fourth quarter of 2026 and the first quarter of 2027, and is getting “clearer messages” on that delivery programme, Mr Clark said on the sidelines of the International Air Transport Association (Iata) annual meeting in New Delhi on Sunday.
“I'm quite impressed with the energy, the concern they have about getting that done … that's why I was cautiously optimistic because they weren't just talking the talk, they were walking the talk,” Mr Clark told reporters in the Indian capital.
Referring to his recent meeting with Kelly Ortberg, Mr Clark praised the Boeing chief executive's efforts to turn the company around. “I can see a high degree of determination and earnestness to get the job done,” he said.
Mr Clark plans to visit Boeing in September to see the assembly lines and inspect the work. He recalled a previous Boeing visit in 2023 when “I ran out screaming and I thought 'this is going nowhere',” he said.
There have been a number of delays to Boeing's 777X programme, originally scheduled to be complete by 2020.
Under the terms of their current contract, Boeing is required to hand over the first jet to Emirates by October 2025. While that is no longer achievable, there is a “glimmer of light”, according to Mr Clark.
“The important thing is they get it out and it's certified to the rigours of the new Boeing approach to building aircraft, safety of operations and all the quality controls that they were having difficulties with before that,” he said.
If Boeing manages to get ETOPS certification flight test programme by the first quarter of 2026, then “it is conceivable” that the aircraft will make its first entry into service by the third or fourth quarter of next year.
Emirates is already organising buyer-furnished equipment for its first 777X aircraft to be installed at Boeing's factory.
Besides getting the 777X jets out of the door, Boeing also faces the challenge of ramping up production as quickly as it can, Mr Clark said. If Emirates had received the aircraft on its original schedule, it would be operating 80 of the 777-9s by now.
Mr Clark is “hearing good stories” about the aircraft's wing, propulsion and take-off weights “but seeing is believing and we're watching very closely”.
With continuing delays in new aircraft deliveries, Emirates has put 219 aircraft through a full cabin refresh at a total investment of $5 billion in its retrofit programme, according to its latest annual financial report.
Meanwhile, the airline has added the first four Airbus A350-900s to its fleet and is satisfied with the engine and aircraft performance. While the aircraft deliveries are “constantly delayed”, when they do fly, they are “very popular” and the dispatch reliability is very high, he said.
However, Emirates has held off from ordering the larger A350-1000 variant as Mr Clark remains critical of Rolls-Royce's Trent XWB-97 engine durability in the Gulf's harsh and hot climate conditions.
If the Trent XWB-97 engine improvements are sorted out, then there is “absolutely no reason” why the A350-1000 plane cannot be successful with Middle East carriers, he said.
First-class upgrade on A380s
Meanwhile, Emirates, a long-standing champion of the Airbus A380, will keep the double-decker in its fleet until the “back-end” of the next decade, Mr Clark said.
The duration of the A380s’ lifetime is related to the product support that Emirates gets and it now has a “huge store of parts”, he said.
The airline will also introduce a new design upgrade to the first-class cabin of its A380s to keep it refreshed through the end of the 2030s.
“Like a hotel, you’ve got to keep at it and we’ll change out the products,” Mr Clark said. The new first-class for the aircraft is “on the drawing board” now, he said, declining to divulge details.
DWC expansion
To grow Emirates' operations beyond the constraints of its home base in Dubai International Airport, the Dubai government is expanding its second hub at Al Maktoum International Airport (DWC).
The construction work on the site is “going at pace” and Mr Clark said he would not be surprised if the project gets delivered faster than its scheduled timeline in early 2030s.
“The workers are on-site and the equipment is on-site. We might even get it faster,” he said, declining to provide a prediction for an earlier delivery date.
Asked if US suppliers such as engine-maker GE Aerospace could pass on tariff-related costs to airline customers like Emirates, Mr Clark said: “They can ask what they want. I expect them to absorb a lot of that in their own margins.”
However the on-again, off-again nature of the tariffs will make it difficult for suppliers to present their customers with predictable prices.
“At what point can you actually change a price point and present it to your customers on the basis of this ever-changing landscape of costs?” he said.
Iata's 81st annual meeting of airline chiefs, with IndiGo as the host carrier, is taking place amid the turbulence of global trade tensions and difficulties around meeting the industry's goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.
