Originally Posted by
Less Hair
They announce to "prefer" the A350K but don't order it yet. It's still a big poker game it seems. Biggest drama and show for twelve aircraft ever.
Not really, there comes a "preferred supplier" stage in such a commercial evaluation, where you no longer waste your time on evaluating the loser, quite some time before placing the formal order. It also allows Airbus to actually allocate them future production slots with now a reasonable likelihood of them being ordered. You can't keep this quiet with all the people involved in two major, and various minor, organisations, and in fact under current stock market rules you are not allowed to as otherwise it opens the way for insider trading.
I think they will need more than 12, converting the Perth to London flight is surely likely as well, along with the likes of San Francisco and Vancouver. Just because they are not at the absolute range extremity doesn't mean it's not an appropriate type for those runs. It can even be that, while the extreme range consideration slightly favours one type, the wider fleet consideration can tip it to the other, while outside commentators do not see the bigger picture.