Boeing Co yesterday issued a stark warning about the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak, saying there was “no question” it would hammer the aviation industry and the broader economy.
Major airlines have halted flights in and out of China, where a lockdown has been imposed in the worst-affected areas, while several countries have banned arrivals from China.
“You have several global airlines that have limited their traffic in and out of China, that’s revenue,” Boeing senior vice president of commercial global sales and marketing Ihssane Mounir said.
Photo: AFP
“You have business trips not happening, you have cargo not going in and out,” Mounir said. “It will have an impact on the economy, it will have an impact on revenues, it will have an impact on these carriers... there’s no question about it.”
Mounir was speaking in Singapore to reporters at Asia’s biggest air show, which has seen more than 70 exhibitors withdraw and a fall in visitor numbers due to virus fears.
Singapore has reported 47 cases of COVID-19 so far and has raised its health alert level to the same as during the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak.
The vast exhibition center hosting the four-day show has been unusually empty, pockmarked by empty booths of companies who have pulled out.
Boeing gets some aircraft components from China, but Mounir said he was not yet seeing any impact on those operations from the coronavirus.
Boeing on Tuesday reported no new plane orders last month and a drop in jet deliveries as the protracted grounding of the 737 MAX continued to weigh on the company.
The aerospace giant booked orders for 45 jets in January last year, but none during that period this year, according to its Web site, the latest bit of negative news since the MAX was grounded in March last year following two deadly crashes.
Deliveries also fell to 13 last month, compared with 46 in the period a year earlier.
The company is targeting the middle of this year to win regulatory approval to resume flights of the MAX.
On Tuesday, US Federal Aviation Administration Administrator Steve Dickson said in Singapore that a MAX certification flight had still not been scheduled, a key step in the process.
“We are approaching a milestone, the certification flight is the next major milestone,” Dickson said.
However, he added that the flight was not scheduled yet, “because we still have a few issues to resolve... We are waiting for proposals from Boeing on a few items.”
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