Boeing is confident of selling one to three 737 BBJ Max aircraft in China every year, following a good 12 months for BBJ orders in the country.
“We’ve sold three BBJ Maxes into China,” says David Longridge, president of Boeing Business Jets. “That's under a third of the total number of Maxes we sold, which is 10. I would say interest in China is high. We would be happy to sell one to three airplanes a year, I don't think that's unreasonable. We are very happy with the Chinese response.”
Longridge, who spoke with Flightglobal at Boeing’s ABACE chalet, notes that the range of the BBJ Max 8 is around 6,500nm, which is suitable for missions from major Chinese cities to California or the US West Coast, with the aircraft carrying about 10-12 passengers.
Boeing borrowed a Chinese customer’s 737-700 BBJ to display at the show’s static park. Because range is the foremost consideration for this particular aircraft, it featured a relatively basic, conservative cabin. This saves weight and boosts range.
Longridge also took a swipe at what he feels is a questionable sales tactic in the industry.
“We have a good reputation delivering the range we promise in our brochures,” he says. “We're very careful about what we publish. We don't want people to be disappointed. We get some customers who have been disappointed by other manufacturers because the aircraft did not do what was promised. There is nothing more irritating than spending a large sum of money and not being able to fly non-stop between the two cities that you specifically need to fly between.”
He adds that although private jet customers are sophisticated individuals, they are not aviation experts.
“They have to trust the manufacturers because they won't study an airplane the way an airline would. They don't have a staff of engineers to look into the details.”
Longridge adds that Boeing did not receive a great deal of interest last year to its proposal of a passenger/combi version of the Boeing Business Jet 737-700C similar to the US Navy’s C-40 Clipper.
Announced at ABACE last year, the proposed variant would have a large cargo door just behind the left-side forward door
“We're not seeing great demand for it,” says Longridge. “We're seeing more demand for a straight BBJ Max 8. We wanted to make it clear that we could do things with our aircraft and were willing to look at different variants for what we thought would be a demand specifically in the Chinese market. It didn't materialise, no harm done.”
Source: FlightGlobal.com
