It’s always a scary thing when reporters start writing about numbers. But Don Phillips at the International Herald Tribune does a little value-added word processing http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/25/business/transcol26.php in this discussion about the ways Boeing and Airbus added up the numbers for their recently released year-end sales totals.
Key Quote: “Each manufacturer emphasizes the best possible method of counting … At Airbus, the year-end sessions have become almost comedy shows, with Airbus officials and reporters well aware of the word games they are playing.”
In Boeing-speak — at least how it’s spoken here on Puget Sound — there are “orders” and “commitments.” Orders are firm — the airline has put its money down, signed the contract and received a delivery date. Commitments are a little softer — the airline may have put a deposit down and tentatively reserved a slot in the production schedule, but there’s no signed contract.
Every once in a while I’ll run across an airline that is, for lack of a better phrase, announcing its “intent to purchase” planes from either Boeing or Airbus. What that typically means is that they’ve decided to buy some jets and they’re negotiating with the manufacturer, and for whatever reason, the airline has decided that it’s in its interest to announce this.
For me — and I think this holds true for the rest of the Boeing press corps around the Sound — the key thing is firm orders. Commitments are interesting, and “intent to purchase” can signal future deals, but firm orders count.
Boeing updates its firm orders on its Web site about once a week. If you’re not familiar with it, here’s the page: http://active.boeing.com/commercial/orders/index.cfm
Airbus seems to update its orders page about once a month here: http://www.airbus.com/en/corporate/orders_and_deliveries/#
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