Boeing Co reported a record number of commercial airplane orders -- 1,044 -- for last year yesterday, and all but formally regained the lead from troubled Airbus in the important sales category amid strong demand for its fuel-conscious 787 Dreamliner and single-aisle 737.
Boeing remained a runner-up to market leader Airbus for a fourth straight year in aircraft deliveries, the category that determines the world's leading manufacturer of airplanes.
Boeing reported 398 deliveries, up 37 percent.
However, it was short of the 425 projected recently by European rival Airbus, which is scheduled to announce its year-end totals on Jan. 17.
Still, the Chicago-based company's revived prospects, in combination with Airbus' missteps with airplane delays and its management discord, appear to virtually ensure that Boeing will be able to return to the top of the commercial jet-making business by next year, according to aerospace analysts.
"It was really the year when Boeing came into its own and Airbus essentially went through a meltdown," Phil Finnegan of the Teal Group said.
"You've got the combination of Boeing with a good, hot new product and Airbus fumbling with technical problems and other issues that no one could have expected," he said.
Boeing reported that it had succeeded in surpassing the previous year's total of 1,002 net airplane orders and coming up just short of Airbus' all-time industry record of 1,055 , which it brought in last year.
Boeing's gross orders, which do not account for cancelations and conversions of orders, totaled 1,050.
Airbus has been gradually losing market share and trailing Boeing by a wide margin with 635 orders as of Nov. 30.
Barring a seemingly impossible barrage of orders during last month, the slumping plane maker will drop to second place in orders when it announces last year's totals.
In addition to quadrupling the delay in production of its A380 superjumbo jet, Airbus and parent European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co have struggled with the loss of three CEOs, one A380 customer, a large potential order from another client and US$6.4 billion in forecast profits.
Boeing, in the meantime, had orders from 76 different customers last year.
During the last 10 days of last year customers placed orders for more than 100 Boeing airplanes.
Orders were placed by Korean Air, Xiamen Airlines, Jet Airways, Air Berlin, Delta Airlines and other unidentified companies.
All signs point to Boeing's momentum continuing, if other factors do not interfere.
"We expect continued strong orders in '07 and '08 as North American and European airlines begin to replace their aging fleet," Merrill Lynch analyst Ronald Epstein wrote in a research note.
Scott Carson, chief executive officer of Boeing's Seattle-based commercial jet-building division, said the company has built a well-balanced backlog of orders after struggling previously.
"The strong orders for the past two years are a validation of our strategy of focusing on our customers, simplifying our product and services offerings and transforming our production system," he said in a statement.
Carson, who took over the job after Alan Mulally left to become the CEO at Ford Motor Co, was credited with reinvigorating the company's sales force as its commercial airplane sales chief serving from December 2004 until last September.
Boeing recorded 157 orders last year for its 787 airplane, which is due to enter service next year after test flights beginning later this year, and a record 729 for its stalwart 737.
The company also reported 76 orders for 777s, 10 for 767s and 72 for 747s -- making the highest total for that program in sixteen years.
Eighty-one of the ordered airplanes were freighters.
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
Taiwan is still in the process of assessing the possibility of recruiting workers from Eswatini, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, adding that its goal is to help Eswatini upgrade its vocational training centers. If there are plans to recruit workers from Eswatini, safeguarding national security, protecting public health and ensuring the employment rights of Taiwanese would be prerequisites, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Director-General Yen Chia-liang (顏嘉良) told a news conference. Key considerations would also include filling labor shortages in specific industries, and fostering bilateral professional and technical exchanges, he said. Yen was asked about the progress of labor
A US uncrewed surface vessel (USV) encountered multiple Chinese warships during an autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait, US defense company Seasats said in a statement on Wednesday. Seasats announced that a Lightfish USV had completed the first autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait. Over five days, the USV traversed the entire length of the Strait while constantly monitoring surface vessel traffic, the company said. The Lightfish encountered multiple Chinese warships, one of which was a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Type 056 corvette, it said. The Chinese vessels were operating “well within Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone without transmitting their identity via the
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
RSS