Boeing’s newest wide-body has zero U.S. airline orders — and now even Emirates won’t take delivery of its earliest jets. Here’s why American and United keep saying no to the 777-9.
Boeing’s 777-9 has yet to win a single U.S. airline order, and the program’s crisis deepened when Emirates refused delivery of 10 early-build jets at the Farnborough International Airshow, months after Boeing had quietly scrapped one of those early airframes rather than pay to rework it.
The disparity traces back to network design. Emirates, based at Dubai International Airport, and Cathay Pacific, based at Hong Kong International Airport, route their global connecting traffic through a single hub, giving them a clear incentive to upgauge to a larger jet whenever demand grows on a given route. American Airlines and United Airlines, by contrast, spread their traffic across 10 and eight hub airports, respectively — including United hubs in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago, Houston, Washington Dulles and Newark — fragmenting the passenger volume needed to profitably fly a 400-seat aircraft. As a result, the Boeing 777-9, the largest twin-engine commercial airliner ever produced, remains completely absent from U.S. carriers’ order books even as it draws robust demand from Middle Eastern and Asian operators.
That absence is also a matter of timing. American Airlines and United Airlines built their trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific networks around the smaller Boeing 777-200ER, with fleets of 47 and 55 jets, respectively. The 777-9 is a direct successor to the larger 777-300ER, which both airlines also fly — but those fleets are still young. United’s 22 777-300ERs average 8.6 years old, and American’s 20 average 12.5 years. Commercial aircraft typically fly for 25 to 30 years, so neither airline has an urgent need to replace those jets.
Boeing’s own production troubles have compounded the mismatch. The 777X program has recorded $15 billion in total accounting charges, including a $4.9 billion reach-forward loss the company booked Oct. 29, 2025, which also pushed the jet’s commercial debut to 2027. That charge followed Boeing’s decision, in late summer 2025, to quietly scrap WH007, the seventh 777-9 ever built — its folded winglets already painted in Emirates colors — after concluding that retrofitting the jet cost more than it was worth.
WH007 was one of roughly 40 early-build 777-9 airframes sitting idle at Paine Field in Everett, Washington, a group the industry has nicknamed the “terrible teens,” a label recalling a similar crisis with early Boeing 787 Dreamliners. Built to outdated engineering specifications, the jets require extensive and costly rework — known as “change incorporation” — to meet current certification standards.
That backlog became public at Farnborough on July 21, when Sir Tim Clark, president of Emirates and the 777X’s largest customer with 270 orders, said the airline would not accept 10 of the early-build jets.
“We’re not taking that batch and that’s it. As far as we’re concerned, what they do with them is up to them,” Clark said.
Clark said the airframes need extensive work to become airworthy. “The modifications for the airframe have been so significant since the early flights. And don’t forget we had a static-test failure as well,” he said. He added that the jets have sat unused for years: “In the end, they have been standing on their wheels with their engines, of course, for some time. We last saw them a few years ago, parked outside Renton, all greened up, and you know, looking very sad.” Asked what could be done with the rejected jets, Clark quipped, “Heinz would be interested — baked bean cans.”
Boeing confirmed the decision to scrap the airframe, saying its prior financial results had already accounted for the change incorporation effort and the choice to abandon the early-build jet.
The pileup of discounted, unwanted 777-9s comes as United Airlines faces its own wide-body shortage. The carrier canceled a longstanding order for 45 Airbus A350-900s this year following a dispute with engine maker Rolls-Royce over a $175 million prepayment and the manufacturer’s “TotalCare” power-by-the-hour maintenance contracts. United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby criticized Rolls-Royce at the International Air Transport Association’s annual meeting in Rio de Janeiro in June.
“GE is the best, I think Pratt & Whitney is working hard, so I appreciate their attitude and what they’re doing, and my sentiment is that Rolls doesn’t care,” Kirby said.
Rolls-Royce pushed back, with CEO Tufan Erginbilgic saying the company has met all its contractual obligations and wants to find a cooperative path forward with United.
With the A350 order gone, industry sources say United could opportunistically acquire the rejected early-build 777-9s at a steep discount — a move that would echo the carrier’s past purchase of the final production 777-300ERs for an estimated $110 million to $120 million to help Boeing bridge a production gap. The 777-9 still doesn’t fit United’s multi-hub network, but a deep enough discount could change that math.
American Airlines is taking a different path. CEO Robert Isom said in June that the carrier has issued a request for proposals to Airbus and Boeing to replace its aging 777-200ERs.
“One good example is the work we are doing to shape the future of our wide-body fleet. We currently have an RFP in the market, and are actively engaging with both Airbus and Boeing as we evaluate our next order for wide-body aircraft,” Isom said.
That competition is limited to smaller jets — the Boeing 787-10, the Airbus A350-900 and potentially the Airbus A330-900neo — with the 777-9 excluded entirely. Analysts say the jet is too heavy, too expensive and would require too much pilot transition training to replace the 777-200ER.
The 777-9 carries 375 to 450 passengers and has a maximum range of 8,000 nautical miles, powered by GE Aerospace’s GE9X engine, which Boeing says achieves 10% lower specific fuel consumption than the GE90-115B that powers older 777s, according to Boeing’s 777X specifications. Its composite wing spans 235 feet 5 inches (71.8 meters) — too wide for gates built for the 777-300ER — so Boeing designed a folding wingtip that lets the outer 11 feet of each wing fold vertically after landing, reducing the jet’s ground span to 212 feet 9 inches (64.8 meters).
Certification has also slowed. Following the 737 MAX disasters, the Federal Aviation Administration overhauled its oversight process, reclaiming certification authority it had delegated to Boeing. The FAA cleared the 777-9 to begin Phase 4A Type Inspection Authorization testing in March, and a production-standard jet in Lufthansa’s configuration flew for the first time in April. Boeing has said flight testing will wrap up by the end of 2026, but validating the jet’s extended-range twin-engine operating standards, required for long-haul ocean crossings, will push certification into 2027 — 14 years after the program launched in November 2013 and more than six years after the 777-9’s first flight on Jan. 25, 2020. The jet’s new 787-derived flight deck, with touchscreens and synthetic vision systems, also means pilots switching from older 777s need separate transition training, adding another cost for any airline considering the type.
Key Takeaways
- No U.S. airline has ordered the Boeing 777-9 because American Airlines’ and United Airlines’ multi-hub networks fragment passenger demand, unlike single-hub carriers such as Emirates.
- Emirates refused delivery of 10 early-build “terrible teens” 777-9s on July 21, deepening a crisis that has already cost Boeing $15 billion in accounting charges and pushed certification to 2027.
- United Airlines, after canceling a 45-jet Airbus A350-900 order amid a Rolls-Royce dispute, may opportunistically buy the discounted, rejected 777-9s despite the network mismatch.
- American Airlines is pursuing a wide-body RFP limited to smaller jets — the 787-10, A350-900 and A330-900neo — excluding the 777-9 as too heavy and costly to integrate.