Airbus prepares for bumpy ride as storm clouds thicken
By Max Kingsley-Jones
Airbus boss Tom Enders and his sales sidekick John Leahy tried to bring some humour to the gloom surrounding the industry by seeking the help of a plug-in crystal ball to forecast 2009 orders at the airframer's annual press conference last week.
The cheery atmosphere present at the Toulouse briefing where Airbus confirmed its return to the number one slot in the sales ranking with a 2008 net order tally of 777 orders - 17% ahead of the 662 orders of its rival - looks unlikely to be evident at next year's gathering. "The book-to-build ratio this year will be below one - ie we expect fewer orders than deliveries," warned Enders.
Total net orders for Airbus and Boeing declined almost 50% to 1,439 units, but this is still the fourth best year on record. Leahy - who unlike his Boeing opposite number is always prepared to take a stab at guesstimating the year's sales tally - said that according to his crystal ball Airbus could expect around 300-400 gross orders in 2009. However, he cautions that "it is looking like a very soft year, so the current estimate is looking closer to the lower end of that range".
CANCELLATIONS
Airbus booked 900 gross orders in 2008, but suffered more than 120 cancellations, compared with just six for Boeing. Airbus's high deficit was largely due to the collapse of US start-up Skybus, which had 65 A320s on order. There were also some adjustments still being made to the A350 orderbook as the remainder of earlier deals for the original version were migrated to the XWB.
Jet airliner deliveries, orders and backlogs
The Skybus cancellations pushed the A320 behind the 737 in market share, but Airbus had a strong performance in the widebody sector after healthy sales of the A330 and A350 drove it to almost a 75% market share with 305 net orders. The renaissance of the 15-year-old A330 continued in 2008 with its triple-digit sales performance close to that of the all-new A350. Sales of the A340-500/600 continued to struggle in 2008, with the six new orders offset by 10 cancellations.
While orders for the 787 slowed significantly in 2008 to fewer than 100, Boeing's widebody classic, the 767-300ER, had a strong revival as airlines turned to the twinjet in the wake of the Dreamliner delay, placing 28 orders.
Sales of the A380 slowed in 2008, declining to nine from 23 the year before. However, things were even less rosy in the very large aircraft sector across the Atlantic, with Boeing taking just three orders for the 747-8 and failing to land that elusive second airline customer for the -8I passenger version.
Leahy predicts that 2009 will be another slow year for the A380, forecasting around 10 new orders for the double-decker.
In output terms, 2008 should have all but matched or beaten the 1999 industry record of 914 deliveries, but saw a 4% decline on 2007 because of the Boeing machinists' strike.
Airbus set a new personal best of 483 deliveries and achieved its target of 12 A380 shipments despite production "still not being fully under control in the way we want it to be", says programmes chief Tom Williams. With these "challenges" remaining, the A380 delivery plan for 2009 has already been adjusted downwards by three units from last year's revised figure of 21 aircraft.
One Airbus delivery milestone worthy of note in 2008 was the handing over of the last of 246 A340-200/300 "classics" ordered since the programme was launched in 1987.
Boeing's shipments - which were originally forecast to rise slightly - declined 15% to 375. Boeing Commercial Airplanes boss Scott Carson acknowledges the company faced "obstacles" in 2008, such as a global financial downturn and a string of missteps in its production system and supply chain.
Uncertainties over financing availability and the general slowdown makes it hard for Airbus to forecast its 2009 deliveries, says Enders. "I would be quite content if we were able to score a delivery number that is in roughly the same order of magnitude as last year. But management has contingency plans if, for instance, deliveries should fall back to the 2007 figure [of 453 aircraft]," he says.
Boeing is expected to give guidance on its 2009 deliveries later this month.
The combined order backlog rose 8% in 2008 to an all-time high of 7,429 aircraft. The share is almost exactly 50/50, with Airbus holding a one-unit advantage.
Boeing continues to lead in the widebody sector with a 56% share while Airbus is still ahead in the single-aisle sector with a 53% share of the backlog.
© Reed Business Information 2009
