By now you’ve no doubt read a lot of the reporting about Boeing’s first-quarter earnings report. Here are a few tidbits that were left in my notebook:
* Don’t expect Boeing’s Commercial Airplanes Group to hit a 10-percent margin for every quarter this year, CFO James Bell said. It hit that milestone this quarter, but largely because of some timing — cash came in this quarter, while some bills won’t come due till next.
Boeing’s projecting a 9-percent margin for Commercial Airplanes for the year, which still is pretty good, Bell said. “Clearly the performance has been outstanding in BCA. There’s no question about that.”
* Pricing seems to be pretty good for Boeing. “It’s a competitive environment,” Bell said, “but we’re really pleased with the kinds of deals we’re signing.”
The big plus for Boeing is that “we have differentiated products,” Bell said. “We’re getting good pricing, good value.” (Translation: “Unlike some people, we’re not having to slash prices on A340s to get people to look at them.”)
“We’re not having fire sales,” Bell said. “We’re seeing good pricing. It’s stabilizing.”
* The 737 Next-Next-Gen remains a long way down the runway. But Bell said Boeing is working with customers “trying to make sure that we’re going to provide a product (that’s) based on what their needs are going forward.”
Boeing worked closely with customers to get their input on the 787, he said. “You’ve seen the benefit of that “
But the 797 remains little more than a tingle in the backside of those of us wedged into 737 seats.
“Right now we’re just enjoying the success in the 737 product,” Bell said. “It’s the most-popular airplane in the world.”
* North American legacy carriers will buy jets again — someday.
Has there been much activity with them? an analyst asked Bell. “Not a lot yet.” he said. “We ultimately hope they come back sooner than later.”
It won’t happen this year, Bell said, but “probably in the 2007 range and later, they’ll come back.”
But even without the North American legacy carriers, Boeing’s pretty confident that it will get 400-plus orders this year — or record a “book-to-build ratio exceeding 1” — in CFO speak.
“Clearly we have strong demand from other market segments that make us believe that’s gonna happen,” Bell said.
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