British Airways Expects First Boeing 777-9 in 2028, Six Years Late

British Airways retired its last Boeing 747s in 2020, but the high-capacity aircraft ordered partly to replace them is now forecast to remain unavailable until 2028. Parent company International Airlines Group has moved the expected arrival of the airline’s first Boeing 777-9 six years beyond the original 2022 target.

IAG chief executive Luis Gallego disclosed the revised timing during the group’s third-quarter earnings call on November 6, according to FlightGlobal. The date remains a forecast because the 777-9 has not completed certification, but it extends an already substantial gap in British Airways’ long-haul fleet replacement plan.

IAG ordered 18 777-9s in February 2019 and secured options for another 24. The aircraft were assigned to British Airways rather than another airline in the group and were expected to arrive between 2022 and 2025. At the time, then-IAG chief executive Willie Walsh called the jet “the ideal replacement for British Airways.”

The plan targeted two aging Boeing fleets: the four-engine 747-400 and older 777-200 aircraft. The larger 777-9 was intended to provide substantial capacity while supporting a cabin with a strong allocation of premium seating. That combination made it more than a routine aircraft purchase; it was a central part of the airline’s planned transition away from older long-haul types.

The schedule changed more abruptly when the COVID-19 pandemic collapsed air-travel demand. British Airways retired its 747 fleet in July 2020 as it cut costs, rather than keeping the aircraft in service until their intended replacement arrived. If the current forecast holds, eight years will separate the 747 retirement from the first British Airways 777-9 delivery.

Certification controls the delivery sequence

The immediate constraint is not simply British Airways’ place in Boeing’s production schedule. Boeing is now targeting the 777-9 program’s first delivery in 2027, and certification must be completed before customer handovers can begin. Boeing said in October that it still lacked approvals needed to complete large portions of the flight-test program, with certification by the US Federal Aviation Administration targeted for mid-2027.

That timing leaves limited room between regulatory approval and the first planned deliveries. Earlier customers, including Lufthansa and Emirates, are expected to receive aircraft before British Airways. Lufthansa has excluded the type from its Northern summer 2027 schedule and expects only a low single-digit number of deliveries, placing subsequent operators further back in the sequence even if Boeing meets its current program target.

For fleet planners, a delayed widebody creates a systems-integration problem extending beyond the aircraft itself. Retirement schedules, replacement capacity, crew preparation, maintenance planning and cabin investment all depend on a delivery window stable enough to coordinate those activities. The 2028 forecast gives British Airways a newer planning assumption, but certification and the initial customer delivery queue still determine whether it can hold.

IAG has continued adjusting its wider fleet plan rather than relying on one aircraft program. British Airways is also receiving Boeing 787-10s and has ordered Airbus A350-1000s, while IAG has described its broader purchases as supporting both replacement and growth. Those aircraft provide additional long-haul capacity, but they do not erase the schedule change affecting the larger 777-9 ordered for British Airways.

The revised date now falls three years after the original plan called for the entire initial British Airways order to have been delivered. Instead of completing its 777-9 transition by 2025, the airline is preparing to receive its first example in 2028 provided certification, early deliveries and the customer queue advance on the latest schedule.

By Thomas Caldwell — AMI’s senior editor for mechanical and mobility engineering, covering vehicle electronics, systems integration, electrification, chassis systems, propulsion, and safety policy.