Airbus will announce its 2005 year-end orders and delivery totals on Tuesday. It’s widely expected that Team Toulouse will announce a higher delivery total — they were planning to deliver more than Boeing last year, and then Boeing lost 30 planes to the Machinists’ strike.
Airbus is likely also to announce a record year for orders, but whether it tops Boeing’s 1,002 net orders … well, we’ll see. As one FOB (Friend of Blog) said last week with the note about the Aeroflot order, there seems to have been a lot of wheeling and dealing about orders officially on the books for ‘05 since Jan. 1, 2006. (See “Jet sales and real politik” below.)
However, the Wall Street Journal says that Airbus is in a bind with its A340, which got trounced in 2005 by Boeing’s newer 777s. (Here’s a Reuters rewrite of that story: http://today.reuters.com/business/newsArticle.aspx?type=ousiv&storyID=2006-01-16T083423Z_01_L16492841_RTRIDST_0_BUSINESSPRO-TRANSPORT-AIRBUS-DC.XML )
Key Quote, from Reuters: “The three versions of the Airbus A340 won only 15 orders in the 11 months to November, according to the most recent figures Airbus published, the paper said. … But Boeing’s competing 777 models won 154 orders last year. Airlines say that the 777 is beating the A340 because it is newer and less expensive to fuel and maintain, it said.”
I’ll see if I can find a free copy of the Journal story somewhere.
(And sonuvagun … here’s a link, courtesy of Blogmaster Scott Hamilton: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/DN-airbus_16bus.ART.State.Edition2.90c5a21.html. You’ll have to register at the Dallas Morning News site to read it.)
It’s always risky for a coffee-drinker like me to try reading tea leaves, but this COULD explain last week’s contradictory comments on a potential Airbus A320 replacement, and it underscores the challenges the Europeans face — does Airbus respond to Boeing by revamping the A340 to make it more competitive, or does it seize the initiative and force Boeing to respond to it by replacing the A320? Pursuing one could very well mean giving up on the other market — it’s hard to imagine Airbus could pursue both replacement A320s AND A340s when it’s already got the A350 on its plate (not to mention it’s still ironing out bugs with the A380). And MAYBE what we saw last week was a sign that Forgeard wants to go one way while Humbert favors another. Or maybe it’s something else altogether.
Along these lines, Boeing Blogger-in-chief Randy Baseler muses about tomorrow’s announcement on his Web log today. http://www.boeing.com/randy/
Key Quote: “And as I sit here today in Seattle, I can’t help but wonder what discussions are going on in Toulouse right about now. Maybe we’ll find out on Tuesday when Airbus releases its year-end results. But in light of the overwhelming response Boeing has had to the 787 and 777 this past year, do you think the other guys are beginning to ask some difficult questions? Could they be talking about whether their widebody product strategy is out of step with today’s market realities?”
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