2014-08-13

Boeing 777. Japan's Next State Aircraft

Boeing 777-300ER Selected as Next State Aircraft, ANA Wins Service Contract


August 13, 2014
from various news sources


The government of Japan has chosen Boeing 777-300ER for the next government aircraft to be introduced from fiscal 2019 while changing government aircraft maintenance contractor to ANA from conventional JAL. An order of two Boeing large aircraft would be given by Tokyo. It was announced on August 12.

Selection of ANA is reportedly for its lower contract money and the government will award the service contract to All Nippon Airways for as long as 20 years.

Ministry of Defense allocated relevant budget of JPY 135 billion (approx. USD1.3 billion)  for the new aircraft to which JAL and ANA brought up with their proposals respectively. ANA finally won the race with JPY123 billion for a couple of aircraft, modifications, crew training as well as operations and service maintenance for twenty years from 2019.
A pair of Boeing 747-400, current official aircraft have been operational since 1993 and Japan Airlines has been the official maintenance service contractor. However, passenger 747s have been all retired at both ANA and JAL and it was said JAL would not be able to provide maintenance service for 747s after March, 2019.
777-300ER has a length of 73.9 meters with smaller cabin than 747s but better fuel efficiency of 30 percent and extended range of 14,000 kilometers, an addition of about 1,000 Km. Operations of new 777-300ERs would be based at Chitose Air Base, Hokkaido by Air Self-Defense Force as same as current fleet of 747s.
ANA Holdings issued its statement to announce its win of the state aircraft contracts saying ‘...very honorable for a Japanese carrier.’  Though the detailed terms and conditions are to be discussed later, ANA would get about JPY 2 billion from these contracts every year; it would be an attractive and stable revenue for carriers as their revenues  are susceptible to business cycle.

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