Airbus jumps out to quick lead in 2007
Published 9:00 pm Tuesday, February 6, 2007
Still smarting from being knocked from the top of the commercial airplane orders heap last year, Airbus started 2007 off right. The company raked in 90 requests for its single-aisle and widebody aircraft in January. Boeing, on the other hand, received nine orders last month.
For the first time since 2000, Airbus lost the orders race to Boeing in 2006. The Toulouse, France-based plane maker had its second-best year with 790 orders but still fell shy of Boeing’s 1,044 orders.
The bulk of demand for Airbus planes last month centered on its single-aisle A320 family of jets. However, the European company also picked up several orders for its newly launched A330-200 Freighter. On its Web site last month, Boeing listed 9 orders from unidentified customers — four requests for 787 Dreamliners and 5 for 777s.
During the company’s 2006 results press conference, Airbus chief executive Louis Gallois said that 2007 would be the year the company faces reality and gets back on track.
“It will be different in 2007,” Gallois said.
In January, at least, it appears Gallois’s prediction might be right.
Then again, just this week Boeing recorded its largest order for 767 freighters in more than a decade — an order that virtually no one would have predicted as 2006 came to a close.
