Somewhere on the ramp at Paine Field in Washington State sit rows of enormous, finished airliners with nowhere to go. They are Boeing 777Xs — the biggest twinjets ever built — and most of them have never carried a paying passenger. In 2026 they are still waiting, because the aircraft that first flew in January 2020 has slipped its delivery date yet again, this time into 2027.

For the airlines that ordered it, the 777X has become an exercise in patience. For Boeing, it is another line of red ink.

A decade late and counting

The 777X was supposed to enter service in 2020. Instead, certification has dragged on year after year, snarled by technical scrutiny and the far tougher regulatory climate Boeing has faced since its wider safety crises. Each slip costs money: the company has booked billions in additional charges against the programme, with the latest estimates running into the low billions of dollars.

It is not that the aeroplane is bad. The 777-9 is a genuinely impressive machine — the longest twinjet ever flown, with folding wingtips to squeeze its vast wing into normal airport gates and GE9X engines so large their fans are wider than the fuselage of a 737. The problem has never been the design. It has been getting the paperwork signed.

Emirates, stuck in the waiting room

No airline feels the delay more than Emirates. The Dubai carrier is the 777X’s single most important customer, with more than 200 on order — the backbone of its future long-haul fleet. Now it expects its first 777-9 no earlier than late 2026, and quite possibly 2027.

Rather than sit idle, Emirates has done the expensive thing: it is taking Airbus A350-900s first to plug the gap, and has poured billions into a fleet-wide retrofit of its ageing A380 superjumbos and 777-300ERs so they can keep flying premium cabins that feel new.

Emirates president Sir Tim Clark has spent years publicly berating Boeing over the repeated slips, while maintaining the finished 777-9 will still be worth the wait — a mix of frustration and faith that captures how much the airline’s plans hinge on this one aircraft.

Why it matters beyond Boeing

The 777X saga is a symptom of a bigger story in commercial aviation: Airbus has pulled ahead of Boeing on orders and deliveries, and every slip on programmes like the 777X hands its European rival more room. Airlines that once planned their next decade around the 777-9 are hedging with A350s instead.

The 777X will, eventually, fly its first passengers — and when it does, it will likely be one of the finest long-haul aircraft in the sky. But every month those jets sit finished and grounded at Paine Field is a month Boeing cannot get back.

Sources: Simple Flying; One Mile at a Time; FLYING; Travel And Tour World; Boeing 777X order data.