Airbus faces high bar in plane orders
Print Edition
After tallying a record number of airplane orders and deliveries last year, Airbus is admittedly facing a high bar in 2014.
The European aerospace conglomerate said yesterday it delivered 626 planes last year, a company record but still 22 fewer than US rival Boeing Co.
The companies enjoyed a banner year as airlines gobbled up their offerings to renew or build their fleets, cut fuel costs and plan for continued growth in air travel.
Airbus’ orders last year rose to 1,169, nearly twice its expectations, leading some executives to caution against any precise predictions about how many they’ll tally this year. The order backlog — jets it plans to deliver in coming years — sits at a record 5,559.
“The market was extremely bullish ... more bullish than John or me would have thought, and probably Boeing,” said Airbus’ top executive Fabrice Bregier, meeting with journalists along with commercial director John Leahy.
Some of the biggest demand came from once-struggling US airlines as well as from emerging markets, particularly Asia.
“The real story for some of you is, where does it go from here?” said Leahy. “The fact is, we cannot as an industry continue at this level. But what we are doing is we’re continuing to increase production.”
“The point is, we are in a growth industry,” he added.
Losing out to Boeing in the delivery tally “doesn’t matter to us at all,” Leahy said. “I think we’re happy with what we’ve got. It’s a duopoly, with a 50-50 split here. I don’t really care if they have two more airplanes or we have two more.”
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