Brian Gorman, a writer for The Motley Fool, wrote an article about Boeing’s 787-10 stretch last tuesday, and I think he missed on a few points. It’s a difficult topic to tackle, for sure, but his concern over the impact of the stretch on other Boeing sales is unfounded.

Gorman’s largest concern centers around the fact that a 787-10 would “compete in the same segment as Boeing’s last new jet, the 777”. This is only partially on the surface, as it’s missing some information. The 787-10 will compete in the same market as a specific 777 model – not the entire product line. The 787-10’s seating capacity and range will be comparable to the 777-200ER, the most popular 777 model. There’s a catch, though – out of 429 orders for the -200ER, 354 have already been delivered. Even if every remaining order was changed to the 787-10, only 75 orders would be lost. Every other 777 order – 199 airframes, at current count – would be untouched.

So, if the 787 cannibalizes sales from a Boeing jet, it’s not going to eat them all. Gorman liberally quotes Mike Bair, the 787 project manager, but leaves out something that Bair recently told Flight Global regarding the overlap: “It is better for us to step on [the 777-200ER] than someone else. If you can do a product that the market is clamouring for, you’d be silly to ignore it”. Boeing is staying ahead of the curve with the 787, and especially the -10 stretch, rather than playing catch-up with a competing aircraft. If there’s a problem with this strategy, I’m not seeing it.

Finally, 787-10 production won’t begin until 2012 at the earliest, according to Randy Baseler. Airlines often want aircraft – especially with the range capabilities the 777-200ER offers – now, not in the future, so it’s unlikely that the 787-10 will immediately cause airlines to cancel 777-200ER orders. And even if they did, production slots for the 787 are booked through 2012 anyway, making that the absolute soonest any other models could enter production.

If the 787-10 captures a few sales from within Boeing, so be it. They can afford it, and they’ll be ensuring that the 787’s popularity remains at the current extraordinary levels.