LONDON – With the Farnborough Air Show 2022 starting in less than a week, let’s begin our preview ahead of the event. Next, we take a look at Boeing and how they have a lot of catching up to do.

AviationSource will be at the airshow for the entire week, providing live updates as they happen from the many manufacturers, airlines & exhibitors that will be attending.

You can visit the page by clicking here! Make sure to bookmark it, with live coverage beginning Monday morning at 8:30 am UK time.

Recovery To Be Measured By Orders…

Boeing will be sending their 737 MAX and 777X aircraft in order to produce a strong enough show that will highlight to the world that they are back on the map.

This recovery will of course be measured by the number of orders they get for both programs, despite the programs experiencing either delays or groundings.

Improvement in consumer confidence needs to be established in order to produce the sort of orders that the likes of Airbus have been acquiring over the course of this year.

So, in this case, Boeing will definitely be seen as the underdog at Farnborough, with there being expectations towards blockbuster orders, which they are going to need.

777X Needs To Be Marketed Heavily…

With the excessive delays that the 777X program has faced, orders are going to be needed in order to keep everyone on the side of the marketing perspective of the aircraft.

With Emirates’ Tim Clark stating that the first delivery of the type to the airline won’t happen until 2025, there have been all sorts of rumors circling that the airline may reduce its order.

Even if Emirates stuck with Boeing and converted orders to the 787, that would still be a significant slap in the face for Boeing, especially as they want the 777X to do well.

But what remains clear is that Boeing has substantial work to do with the 777X, to get it to the stage in public relations where other legacy carriers are tempted to purchase them.

In the world of narrowbodies dominating long-haul, this could prove to be more of a challenge than what we are seeing at the moment.

737 MAX Needs Revival As Well…

The 737 MAX has had some but little momentum, following Akasa Air’s order for 72 units of the type back at the Dubai Air Show last year.

However, consumer confidence could be better with the aircraft. As it stands, a lot of airlines do think about the two MAX crashes that happened a few years ago.

Even despite the fixes, the MAX will probably be the aircraft that will be the most difficult to market, and if they can get some good backing off the Akasa Air order from last year, this may work well in their favor.

However, with there being talks of the MAX 10 being scrapped, it’s clear that this program is in a need of a huge revival, and hopefully, Farnborough will give them the tools to make that happen.

787 Dreamliner Another Focus…

The 787 has been another area of focus for Boeing, especially when it comes to the Federal Aviation Administration now retaining the right to certify each aircraft for delivery.

This joins up the perspective that Boeing has a lot of work to do across its entire arsenal of commercial aircraft. Whether we will see any orders for the Dreamliner at Farnborough is unclear at this stage.

Each of the aircraft types is ironically competing with each other, as orders mean that the supply chain can last longer. Boeing will want to market these three aircraft types into one giant market strategy.

But with the Dreamliner having problems like with the MAX & 777X, we can only wait and see what sort of orders Boeing can come up with for this program.

Overall…

The personal prediction here at AviationSource is that if there aren’t that many orders for the above three aircraft types, there will be a strong focus on the Boeing Converted Freighters program.

It’s a neat pivot for Boeing to make, especially with the e-commerce & cargo markets in aviation currently booming off the back of the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, with the Ukraine Crisis causing problems in the supply chain, Boeing needs to make sales to keep itself in a decent enough position to thrive going into the future.

Be sure to follow our coverage of the airshow here at AviationSource!