January 2, 2019

WHAT BOEING NEEDS to build isn’t a fancy new long-range widebody. What it needs to build is a replacement for the 757.

When it debuted in the early 1980s, the twin-engined 757 was ahead of its time, and it went on to sell quite well until the production line closed fifteen years ago. By now the plane is — or should be — obsolete. Indeed it’s rare to spot a 757 outside of the United States. But here at home it remains popular, a mainstay of the fleets at United, American and Delta, who together operate over two-hundred of them. They’ve kept the plane on their rosters so long for good reason: its capabilities are unmatched, and there’s nothing that can replace it.

The 757 is maybe the most versatile jetliner Boeing has ever built — a medium-capacity, high-performing plane that is able to turn a profit on both short and longer-haul routes — domestic or international; across the Mississippi or across the North Atlantic. The 757 makes money flying between New York and Europe, and also between Atlanta and Jacksonville. United and Delta fly 757s from their East Coast gateways on eight-hour services to Ireland, Scandinavia, and even Africa. You’ll also see it on 60-minute segments into Kansas City, Cleveland, and Tampa.

Along the way, it meets every operational challenge. Short runway? Stiff headwinds? Full payload? No problem. With 180 passengers, the plane can safely depart from a short runway, climb directly to cruise altitude, and fly clear across the country — or the ocean. Nothing else can do that. And it’s a great-looking machine to boot.

I know this in part because I’ve been piloting the 757 for the past nine years, along with its somewhat bigger sibling, the 767. The 787 is an excellent replacement for the latter, but what’s going to supersede the 757?

Boeing has been pitching its latest 737 variants as the right plane for the job. Airbus touts the A321. Am I the only one rolling my eyes? Sure these planes are sophisticated and efficient, but neither has the range, power, or capacity to match the 757.

With the 737, Boeing took what essentially was a regional jet — the original 737-100 first flew in 1967, and was intended to carry a hundred or so passengers on flights of around 400 miles — and has pushed, pushed, pushed, pushed, and pushed the thing to the edge of its envelope, over and over, through a long series of derivatives, from the -200 through the -900 and now onward to the 737 “MAX.” In other words, it has been continuously squeezed into missions it was never really intended for. Its range allows cross-country pairings, but transoceanic markets are mostly out of the question. It carries fewer passengers and less cargo than a 757, and at heavy weights it is often altitude-restricted. For a jet of its size, it uses huge amounts of runway and has startlingly high takeoff and landing speeds. The passenger cabin is skinny and uncomfortable, using a fuselage cross-section unchanged from the 707, engineered in the 1950s. The cockpit is incredibly cramped and noisy. And just look at the thing. The “Frankenplane,” I call it. I don’t care how many changes and updates the plane has undergone; at heart, it’s still a blasted 737 — a fifty year-old design trying to pass itself off as a modern jetliner.

I was jammed into the cockpit jumpseat — more of a jump-bench, actually — on an American Airlines 737-800 not long ago, flying from Los Angeles to Boston. Man, if we didn’t need every foot of LAX’s runway 25R, at last getting off the ground at a nearly supersonic 165 knots — thank god we didn’t blow a tire — then slowly step-climbing our way to cruise altitude. What would it have been like in the opposite direction, I wondered — a longer flight, from a shorter runway, in the face of winter headwinds?

By contrast, I recently piloted a 757 on a flight from Boston to San Francisco. At flaps 20, we lifted off at a docile 130 knots from Logan’s stubby, 7000-foot runway 09, with nearly half the runway still remaining! With every seat full and seven hours’ worth of fuel, we climbed directly to 36,000 feet and flew all the way to California. That’s performance.

Airbus, for its part, says that its A321, a stretched-out version of the A320, is the more adequate replacement than the 737. Perhaps it is, but this plane, too, fails to match the 757’s range or payload capabilities. A newer variant, the A321 “neo,” might prove to be more suitable, time will tell. If so, and if Airbus begins to rack up orders, then shame on Boeing.

What Boeing has long needed to do is design us a new airframe — let’s call it the 797 — that can equal the 757’s remarkable combination of performance and economy, but with more fuel-efficient engines, a modernized flight deck and a new cabin. This is well within the technical expertise, if not the imagination, of the world’s largest plane-maker. For years the company has balked at such an endeavor, insisting that the market for such a plane, estimated at anywhere from 300 to a thousand examples, is too limited. As a point of comparison, Boeing says that it won’t break even on its super-successful 787 program until at least 1,500 aircraft have been delivered. (If this is true, it’s a sad testament to how expensive it has become to develop new aircraft.) Meanwhile we get more and more 737s — the plane that kind of, sort of does the job, but not really.

Lately, though, there are rumblings that Boeing might change its mind. Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg has been hinting that a 797 may indeed be in the works, and a teaser mock-up was just unveiled at the Paris Air Show in 2017. The project is nicknamed the NMA, or “new midsize airplane.”

“We are beginning to hone in after a lot of productive conversations with our customers,” said Muilenburg in an interview with Aviation Week. He cites a “clear market space” for a plane that would fit between the 737 and 787 families. “But the business case has to make sense,” he cautions. “We have the capacity to do this airplane if the market tells us to.”

That’s the good news. The bad, or at least confusing news, is that preliminary renderings of the NMA show us a jetliner seating between 220 and 270 passengers. The plane will have two aisles in 2-3-2 economy configuration — a sort of mini-widebody like the 767 — with a composite fuselage and wings, and a range of just over 5,000 nautical miles.

Is it just me, or is this much too big of an airplane? I like the twin-aisle idea. Two aisles makes for faster boarding and deplaning, and it gives the cabin a roomier feel overall. The NMA all but has to be a two-aisle jet. But, otherwise, how is this not just a 787 with a slightly shorter range? A 757 replacement would be a plane that tops out at around 220 passengers, not one that starts there.

It strikes me that the airplane Boeing ought to be putting out there is one that already exists, at least as a template. I’m talking about the 767. Specifically, the 767-200. The 767-200, which debuted in 1982, was quickly superseded by the larger -300, many of which remain in service. It’s an obsolete model that, by today’s standards, would be laughably uneconomical. In terms of size, range, and capacity, however, it’d be just about perfect as a 757 replacement. So, the thinking (mine) goes, why not upgrade it? Imagine the -200 with new engines, a new cockpit, and overhauled internal systems. Is that not a better option — especially considering the limited market that Boeing predicts for a mid-market plane — than spending billions on an all-new airframe? Call it the 767-X. Twin-aisle comfort for 180-200 people; containerized luggage and cargo; all the range and unbeatable brawn of the 757. What’s not to like?

I know what you’ll say: The underlying architecture of the 767 is much too old for such an idea. You’re probably right. So, fine, give us an all-new airframe if you have to: the 797. Either way, the plane’s basic blueprint, in terms of size, weight, and range, is right there in front of you.

We’ll see what happens. For now, the 757 flies on.

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