BELLEVUE – The Boeing Co. is poised to pass Airbus and regain its position as the world’s top seller of commercial airplanes, Boeing’s new sales chief said Monday.
“We’ll beat them this year,” Scott Carson, the senior vice president of sales for Boeing’s Commercial Airplane Group said.
The key will be “building and rebuilding” relationships with customers who have felt ignored in recent years, said Carson, who spoke to about 50 reporters and representatives from Boeing’s suppliers at a reception Monday night.
Carson is the former head of Connexion by Boeing, the company’s aerial Internet service. He was appointed to his new post four months ago, replacing former top salesman Toby Bright.
Six days on the job and he was flying to India with now-departed chief executive Harry Stonecipher, who gave him his marching orders quite emphatically, Carson said.
Boeing has been out-worked in some parts of the world by Airbus, Carson said. “There were places where we had not paid enough attention to our customers. We’d largely abandoned our customers in the Middle East.”
Turning sales around won’t take a magic formula, Carson said. “It’s pretty basic stuff. Your customers want you to pay attention to them. … Your customers want you to listen.”
Boeing also is moving to streamline its own decision-making processes so it can be “much more responsive, much more immediate” in closing deals, he said.
The early results have been encouraging, Carson said. First-quarter totals won’t be out for another week, but Carson said Boeing out-sold Airbus during the period.
He plans to stay on top.
“The trick for us is keeping the same level of intensity, January through December,” he said.
On other topics, Carson said:
* The United States and European Union appear headed toward a World Trade Organization battle over aerospace industry subsidies. “It’s disappointing that it’s come to this,” he said. Boeing plans to support the U.S. position – that Europe should end its launch aid to Airbus – because it’s the right thing to do for the company and its shareholders, he added.
* Airbus’s proposed new A350 is a “nonfactor” in the marketplace, he said.
Boeing has yet to reach its initial goal of selling 200 787s, prompting speculation that airlines are seriously considering the proposed Airbus challenger to the Dreamliner.
But Carson scoffed at that, saying the A350 is merely a warmed-over version of an existing Airbus jet, the A330. Compared to the Dreamliner, “its performance isn’t good,” he said. “It’s heavy. When customers look it over, it doesn’t factor into the decision process.”
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