Boeing and Airbus: 2001 orders February 2002

Net order intake almost recorded a dead heat for Boeing and Airbus in 2001. Boeing’s firm orders stood at 272 for the year and Airbus’s at 274. These figures are well down on 2000 (Airbus’s net firm orders were 520, Boeing’s 611), hardly a surprise.

Boeing suffered 63 cancellations from gross orders of 335 and delivered 527 aircraft in 2001 (62% of the commercial aviation industry deliveries for the year according to Boeing), it expects a sharp delivery decline to around 380 aircraft for 2002 and worse (between 275 and 300) in 2003. Approximately 80% of the 335 aircraft in its 2001 gross order total are due for delivery in less than three years — "favourable order–to–delivery timing" as Boeing puts it. There are plans to reduce employment from September 2001 until mid–2002 by up to 30,000. As of early January, job losses ran to about 12,000.

In 2001, Airbus delivered 325 aircraft with101 cancellations, from a gross order total of 375. 90% of the cancelled were due to companies facing bankruptcy: Sabena, Swissair and TWA.

Airbus has warned that new orders would fall sharply this year, but Airbus president and chief executive Noel Forgeard repeated the previous forecast that Airbus deliveries could still total about 300 in 2002; there is no official forecast for 2003. There were the equivalent of 6,000 full–time job cuts. This is part of measures to cut costs by up to €750m, in 2002 there will be reductions of €200m each in production, overheads and research and development.

Boeing chairman and CEO Phil Condit expects 2003 to be the "down year". Airbus thinks that "the logic of the downturn suggests that 2003 might be the lowest point of the cycle.”