Don’t get too excited. I didn’t actually get to fly on one. But I did get invited to come take a tour of a 787 while it was on the ground here in Long Beach as part of a tour around North America. Of course, I was thrilled to do it.

I had plenty of time to spend on the outside of the airplane, because they had us waiting around for quite some time until Governor Jerry Brown arrived and gave a little speech. In the meantime, we could walk around all different sides of the airplane without anyone stopping us. It was a lot of fun. My first impression was probably skewed by the fact that it was nose to nose with a C-17, the military transport aircraft they make in Long Beach.

The 787 really is a good-looking airplane. That nose makes it look mean and fast. In fact, the only thing that makes it look a little slower is the engines themselves. They’re so large and impressive in their own right that they seem a little too big for the airplane. I will say that the engines with their scalloped cowlings and curved fan blades are a sight to be seen.

I think what I liked seeing most, however, was the big wing. It’s not A380-massive by any stretch, but it’s contoured with raked and curved wingtips on the end. It’s a thing of beauty.

Enough about the outside. It was finally time to head in. While many people fawned over the seats, I couldn’t have cared less. This is a Boeing demonstrator and we’ll never see those seats on an airplane in service. For me, I was interested in seeing some other features, which I covered in this 1:55 video. (Sorry about some of the sound being too soft.)

First up was the new entryway. Though Boeing clearly made the entry larger than you’ll ever see on any airline, the height of the ceiling with the new arch feature really did make for a different impression of openness. I look forward to seeing how that works with bulkheads on either side in actual airline service.

Next up was the overhead bin. They’re big. Nothing revolutionary but certainly big. Last and most important, I wanted to see those big, beautiful windows.

They really are huge and they’re close together. They provide some excellent visibility for passengers. As a window seat guy, I’m really excited about that. But the big win for me was getting to test out the window dimmers.

The 787 doesn’t have window shades but instead uses a method that dims the windows as you like. It takes 90 seconds for the windows to get their darkest, but even then it’s only 98 percent opaque. This is the best thing to happen to windows on airplanes in years. Now those who want to look outside can still do it while those who want to watch movies without glare or sleep can do it as well. I know it sounds silly, but this is a huge improvement.

I didn’t get to experience the low cabin noise, higher humidity, or lower cabin pressurization altitude, because we didn’t fly. Something tells me I’m going to need to seek one of these out sooner rather than later.

[See all my photos of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner]

Boeing has now officially launched its 737 with new engines – it’s being called the 737 MAX to counter the A320neo. What do you think of the MAX? Will it be a success?

It’s now official. Delta has decided to order a hundred 737-900ER aircraft. These aren’t the new engine versions but just plain old 737s, stretched to an insane length. With so many airlines ordering Airbus A320neo aircraft and showing great interest in Boeing’s proposed re-engined 737, why would Delta go with the old 737-900ER? My mind instantly went to baseball.

Before we talk about America’s pastime, let’s talk details first. Delta ordered one hundred 737-900ER aircraft to begin replacing its 757, 767, and A320 fleets. I assume this can replace some of the A320s coming off lease as well as the older domestic 767s. Add the 757s on top of that, and this is only a start. The airline will need a lot more airplanes to completely replace these fleets. My assumption is that you’ll see these fit right in with the domestic and Caribbean route structure.

The 737-900ER holds almost as many people as a 757. Continental has it configured with 173 seats right now in a similar configuration to what I’d expect to see from Delta, so it’s maybe a 10 to 15 seat cut versus the 757. It doesn’t have the range of the 757, so it’s not going to be serving Europe anytime soon. But there is plenty of room for this airplane to take over within the US for Delta. But why bother?

Most airlines have been clamoring for the re-engined A320 and 737 families and the promises of lower fuel burn. American may have ordered current generation aircraft, but that’s to replace its MD-80s, which it sees as needing replacement sooner rather than later. So why wouldn’t Delta just wait and order airplanes with newer engines since its existing fleet still has a few good years left?

It’s because Delta seems to look at the world in a different way, and that’s where baseball comes to mind. If you’ve read Moneyball, you know the story of the Oakland A’s. Being a small market team, the A’s couldn’t compete on revenue so they had to get creative to build a competitive team. They decided to flip baseball’s knowledge on its head. The A’s believed that the traditional way of valuing players wasn’t necessarily the best judge of actual performance and there were other metrics to use that would help Oakland build a team without breaking the bank. It worked and Oakland was initially able to create low dollar, high quality playoff-bound teams.

I see a similar thing going on at Delta. Everyone is clamoring for the newly-engined aircraft to the point where Boeing was forced to announce the new 737 before it wanted, just so it could win an order from American. But Delta sees that fever for new engines as providing an opportunity for it to do something different. Take a look at this quote from CEO Richard Anderson:

A key component of Delta’s strategy is making prudent investments for the future while maintaining our financial and capacity discipline

Yes, better fuel efficiency is very important, but not if the initial cost of buying that fuel efficiency is so high. This is how Allegiant justifies buying MD-80s, and it’s how Delta seems to be looking at its current fleet decisions. (It also explains why Delta has been buying up MD-90s on the used market.) These airplanes do still provide better fuel efficiency over the existing fleet, but the initial cost is much less than going for one of those newer-engined aircraft. The math works for Delta because of the way others behave.

We don’t know anything about Boeing’s pricing of its re-engined 737 yet, so let’s look at Airbus for an example. An A321 lists for $99.7 million. The new engine option is an additional $6.2 million. That might not seem like a huge difference, but remember that we’re talking about list prices.

With the A320neo selling like hotcakes, you can bet that the discounts wouldn’t be as steep compared to the current generation models. Think of it as a year-end model clearance. Cal Worthington would be proud.

Lower acquisition costs give the airline more flexibility. When you have higher variable costs and lower fixed costs, you can think about scheduling your fleet in different ways. It gives you some flexibility that Northwest has known about for years. Why do you think those DC-9s are still flying 40 years down the road? They’ve been a great asset for the fleet, even if their time is finally coming to an end.

Now, it’s not like Delta is a small market airline and can’t afford more expensive airplanes. It’s just seeing a piece of the market that’s being undervalued and is trying to take advantage. That’s smart.

In case you missed it, American has decided to buy an insanely large number of airplanes. With 460 orders and another 10 million options (ok, maybe just 465), this was easily the largest order ever for an airline. Not only did American order a lot of airplanes, but it gave the lion’s share to Airbus, a huge coup for the manufacturer. This is a huge chunk of change, so why is American, the airline with one of the weaker balance sheets around, playing with fire? A few reasons. This might actually be a smart move.

Unfortunately, we don’t know a ton of details about American’s plans just yet. We do know that American will buy 100 more current generation 737s, 100 737s with new, more efficient engines, 130 current generation A320 series airplanes, and 130 A320neo (new engine option) series airplanes. That comes to a total of 460. How will this massive buy fit into the airline’s fleet? That remains to be seen since American hasn’t said which versions of each series it will take. But we do know something.

When this order is fully filled, the MD-80, 757, and 767-200 will have disappeared from American’s fleet. The MD-80 retirement is no surprise. American has slowly been replacing those with 737-800s, and this will be the nail in the coffin for the older technology, less fuel efficient “Mad Dog” aircraft. I know a lot of people hate MD-80s, but I do have a special place for them. Soon enough, there won’t be any Douglas airplanes flying. Sad.

But time marches on, and it was a given that this would happen. Today, American has 214 MD-80s left in the fleet with 154 737-800s. There were previously 54 737-800s on order, so really, there were just 160 MD-80s that still needed to be replaced. That will undoubtedly happen with the 737 and A320 current generation airplanes on order in some form.

Then there’s the 757. It’s a great airplane that uniquely can fly passengers across the Pond to Europe, over to Hawai’i and into a variety of hot and high locations with ease. No other airplane has been able to duplicate this with so few seats, and even though it’s out of production, the airplane is still a strong performer. American has decided that it can replace it, but I don’t think that will be with one airplane. The 737 can do Hawai’i, the A321neo and next gen 737s should be able to get to Europe. It probably won’t be a one size fits all solution, but with these new-engined airplanes, there is finally a way to replace the 757.

The 767-200 is a niche airplane that primarily flies the JFK to LA and SF routes. That will be easy to replace, and probably should be toast sooner rather than later.

That’s pretty much what we know. The problem, as mentioned, is that we don’t know which airplanes in the series American will actually take. It notes that it has flexibility and can opt for any family member in each series, specifically the 737-700, 737-800, 737-900ER and the A319, A320, and A321 are mentioned. So what will the counts look like of each? We don’t know, and American probably doesn’t know either. The airline does like to talk about what amazing flexibility it has in this deal. It can make changes as it sees fit over time. One thing is clear; this will add a lot of airplanes to the fleet, and it reintroduces Airbus into the Boeing-loyal airline.

I’m still surprised that American bothered ordering from both Boeing and Airbus. It seems to me that Airbus had this thing sewn up thanks to Boeing’s refusal to move on an heir apparent to the 737 while Airbus had the A320neo. When Boeing finally budged (note that the new engine 737 isn’t approved yet by Boeing’s board but is part of the order), it was able to squeeze back in to the race. But why not pick one over the other? It would seem that with a re-engined option, one manufacturer could fill the need. But I think it’s all about money.

As part of this deal, there’s no doubt that American went back and forth to both manufacturers and played them off each other. They got the absolute best deals they could and then, they took them both. That’s a great move. There will be enough airplanes in each fleet to really not make much of a difference whether there’s one type or two. And this way, American can walk away with big money. In fact, the first 230 deliveries are already covered by financing from the two manufacturers. It’s like American is the kid who went up to its parents and asked for money . . . and dad handed over his whole wallet.

But with all these massive orders, American is still going to have a lot more airplanes than it has today. Let’s assume that American retires all its 757s, 767-200s, and MD-80s. That’s 299 airplanes out of the fleet but 460 coming in. Huh? That’s huge growth, and it doesn’t even count the options. I can’t imagine a need for that much growth, so how will this play out?

Some of it could be counting on the new-engined aircraft replacing some of the current generation 737s and A320s that come in, but there could be more to it. And that could lie with American Eagle.

American also announced that it will go ahead in spinning off American Eagle into a separate company. As part of that, the Eagle pilots got a guaranteed path into American with 35 percent of new hire pilots at American required to come from Eagle. American likes to say that it’s spinning off Eagle so that it can fly on its own and can start working for other airlines as well. Yeah, right. Eagle is expensive compared to other providers, and its chances aren’t great for getting new flying. The reality is that American really just wants to start looking for other airlines to do some of its express flying for less. So it spins Eagle off and slowly shrinks it into oblivion.

But remember, today American flies nothing smaller than the 140 seat MD-80. What if it chooses to get A319 and 737-700 airplanes as part of this order? You figure those would fly in around a 120 to 124 seat configuration. With that smaller airplane, could American start bringing mainline flights back to places that are served with 70 seaters today?

It might be a stretch, especially since my assumption is that the pilots aren’t going to work for less to win that flying back. But there are a lot of routes out there that are on 70 seaters today, like Chicago to Atlanta, that might work better with a larger airplane. American hasn’t had that type of capacity for years, so we have no idea how the airline would use it. But it could be a way of reducing dependence on Eagle, if labor is willing to take on the challenge.

In the end, we really don’t know what American’s strategy is. I doubt American even fully knows what it’s going to do with all these airplanes. But it is encouraging to see the airline make these moves. American is finally, actually, going to try to do something about its cost problem instead of continuing to whine about how others will eventually catch up. With sweetheart financing from the manufacturers and much more fuel efficient aircraft, this should help the airline keep costs down. If only we had more details to know for sure . . .

[Original Aircraft Photo via Flickr user JF10/CC 2.0]

That’s the question. What will Boeing do? The Airbus A320neo has been a hot seller at the Paris Air Show this year, and even American is said to be in talks with Airbus about buying. (This sounds like an effort to get Boeing off its butt, but that’s just me.) So what will Boeing do? Will it go for a 737 with new engines? An all new 797 to replace the 737? If it wants to keep winning narrowbody orders, it has to do something. The question is . . . what?