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Tuesday July 11, 12:51 AM
Falling Airbus sales hand boost to BoeingEuropean aircraft maker Airbus has announced a sharp fall in its orders, a setback for the company in its battle with Chicago-based Boeing and a sign that the US group is in the ascendancy. Airbus said it had booked 117 firm orders for passenger jets in the first half of 2006, fewer than half the number in the same period of 2005 and far behind Boeing.
In the first six months of 2005, Airbus had booked 276 orders and over the full year beat Boeing for orders for the fifth year running. The figures on Monday, published on the company's website, show the European group far behind Boeing which reported 480 orders on July 5, four times more than Airbus over roughly the same period. Reversing this trend will be a key challenge for the new Airbus chief executive, Christian Streiff, who took over at the beginning of the month. Airbus is ahead with deliveries -- 219 compared with 195 for Boeing -- but the figure for orders is seen as the indicator of future success and shows the relative strength of each company's product range. Boeing is winning the race in the long-haul market with its 787 Dreamliner model, which is being marketed to airlines as a fuel efficient, medium-sized jet. By contrast, Airbus has had to redesign its A350 aircraft, which it launched in 2005 as a direct rival to the 787. The aircraft has been poorly received by potential customers and is being overhauled to make it bigger and more fuel efficient. Some analysts believe the A350 will re-emerge as the A370 and might be unveiled by Airbus at the Farnborough airshow in Britain, which takes place from July 17-25. While Airbus has been struggling to convince customers of the A350, Boeing has been reaping the rewards. Airbus said it had received just 20 orders for long-haul carriers in the first six months, which includes the A330, A340, A350 and A380. The 787, which has a capacity of 250-300 passengers, has attracted 363 orders since its commercial launch in 2004 compared with about 100 for the A350. Figures for small, single-aisled airlines also show Airbus behind Boeing. The European group revealed 96 orders from January to June while Boeing had 374 from January to July. Orders for the flagship Airbus A380, which will be the biggest airliner in the world when it enters service next year, have also dried up since the beginning of 2006. No new orders have been added this year to the 159 already placed, but the commercial director of the group, John Leahy, said last week that he expected to land 20 new orders for the A380 before the end of the year. Airbus announced in June that it had experienced production problems with the A380 which would result in delays to deliveries of the giant aircraft. The news exposed management problems at Airbus and its parent company EADS and led to the departure of Airbus chief executive Gustav Humbert and EADS co-chief executive Noel Forgeard. The day after the production problems were announced, the price of EADS shares dived 26 percent on the Paris stock exchange, wiping billions of euros from the company's market value. A French association acting on behalf of small shareholders said Monday it had joined a class action lawsuit in the Netherlands against EADS, which owns 80 percent of Airbus, following the dramatic fall in the share price.
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2006
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