Boeing widebody sales figures far worse than expected

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  • Charles-P
    Participant

    In a sign of how the emphasis of the industry has moved in terms of platforms there is news this week from influential trade magazine ‘Aviation News’ that show the true state of the sales figures.

    According to their latest forecast, Boeing hopes to win 535 orders for the year, of which 215 are expected to be for wide-body aircraft. However, of the 335 net orders announced by mid-August, 297 are for the single-aisle 737 family, meaning Boeing has so far this year achieved less than 20% of its remaining wide-body aircraft sales goal.

    The forecast numbers show that of the 215 twin aisle models the company is targeting, almost 180 are expected to be split equally between sales of the 777 and 787. So far in 2016, however, only the 787 has made it into double figures, with 19 net orders. The 777, which is in search of orders to bridge the 2017-19 gap until production of the successor 777X begins, has accrued a mere eight new orders since the start of the year.

    With news earlier this week that seven years after the Airbus A380’s debut, the number of American carriers to take delivery of the aircraft is zero is cause for concern in Toulouse. Although Airbus beat Boeing for overall sales with 1,457 orders last year compared with 1,432 for Boeing the A380 has been saved by the orders from Emirates. There are some in the industry who question if the A380 will ever payback its €15 billion development costs.


    Flightlevel
    Participant

    Expect Boeing to annnounce 777 orders at very low prices to keep production and employees, prices confidential ofcourse. Airbus too for A380’s maybe, though suspect some airlines are now becoming less competive with 777’s because of A380 economics on busy destinations, e.g. Cx is having problems keeping up profits vs.A380 competitors, even U.S airlines may have to buy some?


    MrMichael
    Participant

    I am surprised no American Carrier has tried an A380 on the coast to coast flights. Seems to me it would make economic sense for high density routes such as JFK -LAX, I wonder if a little quiet pressure has been put on them….possibly with a payback on restrictions to the ME3.


    FDOS_UK
    Participant

    greyhawkgeoff
    Participant

    Mr Michael, I very much doubt that there is any demand from airlines within the US to use an A380 internally on any route even the transcontinental NY/Boston to LA/SFO type routes. The reason is flexibility of the current A321/B757/737 offers.

    With AA and Jet Blue amongst others having invested in new A321’s to offer a high frequency flat bed product in first, they offer convenience and the ability to increase/decrease flight frequency easily. 20/30 years ago when the offer was early 747’s the frequency was poor, and even the 767’s that replaced them, now taken out of the big 3’s service, were an offer that was at times too inflexible. The joy of the 321 is that it can be deployed on other routes at periods or days of low demand for transcon travel, so JetBlue for one use them down to sunshine destinations at weekends.

    And with likes of Delta replacing its couple of dozen 747’s in the coming years on the Pacific routes with A350’s the likelihood of any wider fleet commonality reduces still further. So sadly for the folks in Toulouse it looks like they will never sell any 380’s to the US carriers.

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