United's Order Shuffling Nets Airbus Out To 45 A350-900

United and Airbus reached a deal well sort of.  United had ordered 35 of its A-350-1000's a while back using a list price of 359 million in this example. It now turned that order into 45 A-350-900's increasing the Airbus book unit numbers by ten. The list price for each A350-900 is about 311 million.

By The Numbers: $ amounts are list prices

Prior order:        35 (A350-1000) X   $359 Million = 12.57 billion

Converted Order: 45 (A-350-900) X   $311 Million = 14.004 billion

Net Unit Increase =10
Net Value Increase =  $1.5 billion

Airbus gains about $1.5 billion at list prices when signing off with United Airlines on a new deal. Typically negotiated prices are significantly less than list prices as much as 50% less. The actual net value increase would be estimated as a sub $1 billion amount added to the Airbus book values. However, it is a significant win for Airbus as it steps into Boeing territory in a big way. Gone will be United's 777-200 as it reaches 25 years old by 2023. 

Not all is lost for Boeing as it has sold United 18 of its 777-300-ER's for 747 replacements. A consideration by United is the 777X model not yet built or tested. This will occur by 2020 and becomes late to the United's gate for any risks associated with new plane development. It also has a high list price as well. 

The 777-8X is listed  for $379 million and the 777-9X is listed at $409. Both are considerably higher priced models from its listed starting point than that of the A-350-900. If United would have gone the 777X direction, it would have increased costs and risks beyond what it could endure for its fleet renewal. The A-350-900 fits right into its fleet scheme of things for costs and capacity.  

A further note is the A-350-1000 order count now drops to 142 net orders down from 177 net orders. This now pushes the 787-10 orders ahead of the A-350-1000 by a margin of 27 units. The A-350-900 has surged ahead to a 718 count over Boeing's 787-9 order count of 685 units, which gives Airbus a head to head advantage for the model class by 33 units.

However, Boeing still remains far ahead of Airbus for total mid-widebody  advanced technology aircraft. Boeing has 1,278 787's ordered compared with Airbus' 868 A-350's ordered to date.