Aviation Partners Boeing Launches 737-900 Blended Winglet Program
Continental Airlines, KLM and Alaska Airlines Order 26 737-900 Blended Winglet Systems
SEATTLE, Dec. 26-- With program launch of Aviation Partners Boeing 737-900 Blended Winglets, and first deliveries slated for December 2007, the world's airways will soon be making room for even more Blended Winglet Performance Enhanced airplanes. Launch customers Continental Airlines, KLM and Alaska Airlines plan to complete the retrofit of their 737- 900s by the end of the first quarter of 2008.
"We've had a great deal of customer interest in 737-900 Blended Winglets and this important new program gives more of our operators commonality and the ability to fly with 100% Blended Winglet equipped 737NG fleets," says Aviation Partners Boeing CEO John Reimers. "This program is off to a very strong start and we anticipate that the remaining handful of operators of the 737-900 will be unable to ignore the tremendous value Blended Winglets add to the aircraft."
Benefits of Aviation Partners Boeing's Visible Technology are nothing short of dramatic in fuel savings, improved performance and environmental advantages. Given average aircraft utilization rates, operators will save over 100,000 gallons (380,000 liters) of fuel per aircraft per year resulting in a payback on investment of less than 3 years. Noise footprint, on takeoff and landing, is reduced by an average of 6.5% while engine emissions of carbon dioxide and nitrous oxides are lowered on the order of 5.0%.
"Blended Winglets will give KLM improved range and payload on many longer stage lengths in its European Network," says KLM's Vice President of Fleet Services Rene Kalmann. "Further this decision fits in KLM's Corporate Social Responsibility policy to invest in environmental protection that goes beyond regulatory compliance."
For KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Blended Winglet equipped 737-900s will continue to provide important fuel savings while adding to fleet commonality -- the airline will be installing 21 additional Blended Winglet Systems on the 737-800 beginning in March 2007. All 737-800s in KLM's fleet will be Winglet equipped by February 2008.
"Continental remains steadfast in its efforts to improve aircraft performance and reduce fuel usage. Equipping our 737-900s with Blended Winglets moves us closer to that goal," says John Greenlee, Managing Director of Fleet Planning for Continental. "The fuel efficiency improvements offered by Blended Winglets coupled with our young fleet provide Continental with a natural hedge against volatile fuel prices."
For Continental Airlines, Blended Winglet equipped 737-900s will complement the carrier's existing winglet equipped aircraft, which include 100% of its 737-700s, 737-800s and 757-200s. To date the airline has installed winglets on 182 aircraft and plans to add over 100 additional Systems in the next few years as it will soon begin retrofitting winglets onto its 737 Classic fleet while continuing to take new 737NG aircraft with winglets, including the new 737-900ER.
"Our long-haul flying will benefit greatly from the fuel savings and payload advantages provided by blended winglets," said Scott Ridge, Alaska Airlines' managing director of technical operations and support. "We've seen the value of the winglets on our other next-generation 737s and look forward to achieving similar efficiencies with our -900s."
Alaska's order for 9 shipsets of 737-900 Blended Winglets adds to their current order of: 19 737-700's and 37 737-800's of which 33 are already in service.
By year-end 2006, over 1500 Blended Winglet Shipsets will be in service with over 100 airlines in more than 40 countries on 6 continents. Currently, 65% of in-service fleet of 737-700s, and 57% of in-service 737-800s, are Blended Winglet Equipped. By 2010, with over 4500 airliners upgraded, APB anticipates that Blended Winglet Technology will have saved commercial airlines over 2 billion gallons of fuel.
CONTACT:
Patrick LaMoria,
VP Sales,
or Dick Friel,
Sr. VP Marketing,
both of Aviation Partners Boeing,
+1-206-830-7299
Web site: http://www.aviationpartnersboeing.com/
