During the course of last month (May 2015), United Airlines (UA, Chicago O'Hare) converted two of its existing B787-10 orders into B787-9s a review of Boeing (BOE, Washington National) Order Numbers has revealed. With the change, the US legacy carrier now has twenty-three -10s on firm order while its -9 backlog now stretches to fourteen (adding to the six currently in service).
In April, United announced it had converted ten B787 slots into B777-300(ER)s with deliveries scheduled to begin this year.
In other United fleet-related news, Chief Financial Officer John Rainey has played down uncorroborated reports in the US airline media which had linked United to talks with Airbus (AIB, Toulouse Blagnac) over the temporary use of two ex-Skymark Airlines (BC, Tokyo Haneda) A380-800s.
While Rainey did confirm to FlightGlobal in an interview that his airline was "currently examining the type", he added that it may not suit United's model given its preference for smaller widebodies like the B787 which, he said, were better suited to the business market.
