After receiving record orders in recent years, Airbus says it expects orders for new planes this year to drop by half from last year amid slower global growth.
John Leahy, Airbus' chief salesman, said at the Singapore Airshow on Tuesday that the European planemaker is likely to sell about 700 planes this year, down from more than 1,400 orders last year.
"The market, in terms of new orders, will be going down," Leahy told a press briefing. "We have a record backlog so I would expect to see fewer and fewer orders as the market does cool off a bit."
"By definition, the whole world is cooling down a little bit," Leahy said.
The 700 planes that Toulouse, France-based Airbus wants to sell will include more than a hundred A350s, a redesigned widebody 300-seat jet, and about 30 units of the A380, the world's largest commercial jet. Korean Air Lines Co said on Monday it would buy three more double-decker A380s on top of its existing order for five of the world's biggest commercial jets.
Leahy said that orders for planes had peaked in the past three years and manufacturers were now ramping up production to deliver them.
Airbus has about 3,600 planes in its order backlog, he said, about the same number as its US rival, Boeing.
Together, the rivals won a record 2,754 orders last year.
The biggest challenge the companies face is getting planes off their production lines fast enough to meet demand. At the end of last year, the two companies together had enough airplanes on order to keep their factories busy for about five to six years.
Both companies have faced delays in deliveries. Airbus's first A380 was delivered nearly two years late last fall -- a delay that slashed profits at parent company EADS.
Chicago-based Boeing last month said the inaugural flight for the 787 would be delayed up to three months, pushing delivery of the first plane into early next year -- the third time the airplane has been delayed.
Airbus chief executive Tom Enders said his company was learning from the mistakes that caused the A380's delay and that it was making improvements in integrating production processes.
"We're taking quite a few lessons from our own failures on the 380," Enders said.
"The core of that problem was the missing thorough integration of processes inside Airbus," he said. "We have changed that already in the last two years ... and we're on our way to improving them further."
Enders said Airbus was studying the production problems that Boeing currently faces with its supply chain and slow progress on the assembly line, but said he was confident both companies' supply chains were up to par.
"I'm sure that Boeing has taken some lessons from our failures. We are in turn studying carefully what we should take from their problems on the 787," he said. "For supply chain to come to that point is a major concern."
"But we believe we have every reason to assume that our supply chain ... can match the ramp up that we and our competitor have ahead of us," Enders said.
In his National Day Rally speech on Sunday, Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) quoted the Taiwanese song One Small Umbrella (一支小雨傘) to describe his nation’s situation. Wong’s use of such a song shows Singapore’s familiarity with Taiwan’s culture and is a perfect reflection of exchanges between the two nations, Representative to Singapore Tung Chen-yuan (童振源) said yesterday in a post on Facebook. Wong quoted the song, saying: “As the rain gets heavier, I will take care of you, and you,” in Mandarin, using it as a metaphor for Singaporeans coming together to face challenges. Other Singaporean politicians have also used Taiwanese songs
NORTHERN STRIKE: Taiwanese military personnel have been training ‘in strategic and tactical battle operations’ in Michigan, a former US diplomat said More than 500 Taiwanese troops participated in this year’s Northern Strike military exercise held at Lake Michigan by the US, a Pentagon-run news outlet reported yesterday. The Michigan National Guard-sponsored drill involved 7,500 military personnel from 36 nations and territories around the world, the Stars and Stripes said. This year’s edition of Northern Strike, which concluded on Sunday, simulated a war in the Indo-Pacific region in a departure from its traditional European focus, it said. The change indicated a greater shift in the US armed forces’ attention to a potential conflict in Asia, it added. Citing a briefing by a Michigan National Guard senior
CHIPMAKING INVESTMENT: J.W. Kuo told legislators that Department of Investment Review approval would be needed were Washington to seek a TSMC board seat Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) yesterday said he received information about a possible US government investment in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and an assessment of the possible effect on the firm requires further discussion. If the US were to invest in TSMC, the plan would need to be reviewed by the Department of Investment Review, Kuo told reporters ahead of a hearing of the legislature’s Economics Committee. Kuo’s remarks came after US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Tuesday said that the US government is looking into the federal government taking equity stakes in computer chip manufacturers that
CLAMPING DOWN: At the preliminary stage on Jan. 1 next year, only core personnel of the military, the civil service and public schools would be subject to inspections Regular checks are to be conducted from next year to clamp down on military personnel, civil servants and public-school teachers with Chinese citizenship or Chinese household registration, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday. Article 9-1 of the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) stipulates that Taiwanese who obtain Chinese household registration or a Chinese passport would be deprived of their Taiwanese citizenship and lose their right to work in the military, public service or public schools, it said. To identify and prevent the illegal employment of holders of Chinese ID cards or
RSS