Topic of the Week: American Orders Two 777s

More than being the first two 77Ws that American ordered, I believe they’re the first 77Ws that any US-based airline has ordered, despite the model’s huge popularity abroad. I wonder if this presages further purchases from US airlines, especially those that will ultimately need to replace their 747s (Delta and United).

Sounds like they want to do a long haul service somewhere that would take two planes to do one daily round trip.

It’s also interesting since the -300ER only comes with GE engines. All of American’s other 777′s have Rolls engines. Seems like there is more to this.

They should order the Airbus A340-600 to avoid the ETOPS rules.

Nostalgia…they only had 2 747-SP’s

777 might be more attractive to airlines on operational cost basis but for passenger appeal I rank it below the A340. I flew KLM 777 from Schipol to Manila and it was noisy and cramped. A year later, using another option, I took a Gulf Air 340 from Abu Dhabi to Manila. It had a 2-4-2 layout in economy which meant that you only ever had to clamber over one person to reach the aisle. Also, however reassuring ETOPS is meant to be, after the catastrophic failure of the R-R engine on the Quantas 380 can anybody honestly say that they would prefer to be half way across any ocean in a twinjet than one with four powerplants?

Thanks for reply. Yes flying is tremendously safer than heading off down the M1 motorway from London on a Friday evening. Mind you I am always a bit suspicious of that statistic that says you could expect to travel x million miles by air before suffering a fatality. Not much consolation if you are suffocated or burned to death like some of the first timers several years ago on the British Airtours 737 flight from Manchester to Corfu that never actually made it off the ground.
I must confess to loving the whole flying experience ..people watching at the airport ..scrutinizing the exotic names on the departure boards ..admiring the big jets up close.
Im also fascinated in a morbid sort of way by NatGeo’s Air Crash Investigation. That painstaking detective work often turns up some basic human error as the prime cause of a disaster.
I also remember a weird case of a British Midland 737 which suffered an engine failure en route from Heathrow to Northern Ireland. The pilot incredibly shut down the healthy engine resulting in the plane stalling short of East Midlands runway and pancaking onto the M1 motorway.
Finally I spent Xmas at the home of my girlfriend’s parents in the mountains of Mindanao island, Philippines. Just a few miles away is Mount Sumagoya where in 1998 a Cebu Pacific DC9 came down in poor visibility even though the pilot’s last recorded cockpit warning was “Terrain, Terrain, Terrain !”
Perhaps one day we will find ourselves sitting next to each other on a long haul flight and can exchange further on aviation matters. Now statistically that would be amazing !!