Hawaiian Airlines (HA, Honolulu) will acquire two more B787-9s, taking their total confirmed orders of the aircraft type to 12. The airline notified the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) about the supplemental agreement on December 30, 2022.
In addition, Hawaiian Airlines and Boeing have agreed to defer the initial deliveries of the first B787-9s which were most recently scheduled to commence in 4Q 2022. Deliveries will now start with one aircraft in 4Q 2023, three more in 2024, and the remaining deliveries are slated to run through the end of calendar 2027.
"The delivery schedule disclosed above represents Hawaiian’s best estimate of the timing of aircraft delivery under the purchase agreement and supplemental agreement, as of the date of this report," reads the filing. "Actual delivery dates are subject to change based on various potential factors, including production delays by the manufacturer."
Hawaiian Airlines ordered the first ten B787-9s, with options for a further ten, in mid-2018, with deliveries originally scheduled to begin in 2021. However, the pandemic and problems on the B787 assembly line have disrupted that timeline. During a July 2022 earnings call, Hawaiian CEO Peter Ingram told analysts that he wasn't expecting any B787 deliveries until 2024 but expressed optimism that the aircraft type would become an integral part of the carrier's fleet in later years.
Hawaiian's B787s will replace its existing widebody fleet of twenty-three A330-200s which are 9.6 years old on average and which are more or less split between being leased and owned.
