The reason there’s been a relative dearth in widebody orders in recent years is due cheap fuel it made more economic sense to extend the life of your
744/767/772/330 etc than to buy a 350/787/Neo etc, as the cost of financing the new aircraft outweighs the cost of the extra fuel burn. Cheap fuel was there for a number of reasons but a major one was that Iran can extract oil far more cheaply than Saudi, so were actively flooding the market to hurt the Saudi economy, and under Obama the US was encouraging this to put pressure on Putin.
With sanctions kicking in again on Iran in a matter of weeks, the price will climb again, so we may see new widebody orders as a result.
Now I see we have a current Boeing employee in KenV and a former in tdracer. Is the 778 signicatly heavier than the 77W to allow the extra range? And if so, wouldn’t that make the A35K more efficient up to something like 80% of the 778s range, which is a fairly niche market?
I mean combined number of 77L and A345 built was roughly 100 right?