Link : http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=new...id=agz2ZL4ubOB0
QUOTE ('Bloomberg')
EADS Says Airbus May Lose Some Orders on Crisis
By Sabine Pirone
Dec. 9 (Bloomberg) -- European Aeronautic, Defence & Space Co. said its Airbus SAS division, the world’s biggest maker of commercial aircraft, may lose some plane orders next year as the financial crisis continues.
Airbus hasn’t yet reported cancellations stemming from credit-market turmoil, “but I am sure that we will see more consequences next year,” EADS Chief Executive Officer Louis Gallois said today at a conference on the U.K. Aerospace in London. The order backlog remains “very strong,” and production is overbooked until 2011, providing a “buffer’ against any scrapped contracts.
Toulouse, France-based Airbus won orders for 756 airliners in the first 11 months of this year, two-thirds of the intake for the year-earlier period, as the global recession crimps demand for air travel. That compares with a 43 percent drop to 645 new orders in the period at competitor Boeing Co. China’s aviation regulator today said it will encourage airlines to cancel or postpone plane deliveries due next year.
Airlines are beginning to feel the effects of declining traffic and passengers’ choosing economy class over first or business class tickets, Gallois said. At the same time, carriers have been helped by falling oil prices, he said.
IATA’s Forecast
Worldwide airline traffic may fall by 3 percent next year as economies contract, the industry’s first decline since 2001, the International Air Transport Association said today. At the same time, carriers’ combined losses may narrow by half in 2009, to $2.5 billion, as oil prices ease and U.S. airlines are helped by earlier reorganizations, the trade group said.
The U.S. economy has been in recession since December 2007, while the European Central Bank predicts the economy of the 15 countries using the euro will shrink by 0.9 percent in 2009.
Boeing customers have canceled orders for six aircraft so far this year and deferred delivery dates for 100, with most of the changes coming from U.S. airlines, Liz Verdier, a spokeswoman for the Chicago-based planemaker, said today. That’s out of a record order backlog for 3,733 airliners.
“We manage our order book in the likelihood of cancellations and deferrals, so this is a little higher than normal but still within the range of what we account for,” Verdier said.
Airbus Chief Operating Officer John Leahy, the planemaker’s top salesman, said in early December that outside financing for aircraft may become more available in mid-2009 as banks that lost money on property come to favor assets that can be easily moved to where demand is strongest. Airbus can provide some funding to customers, though Leahy said the amount would be “as little as possible” because “we’re not a bank.”
Plane-leasing companies in the past “were the factor for stabilizing the market,” Gallois said today. “Now, as they are leveraged, they are in the same boat as airlines.”
By Sabine Pirone
Dec. 9 (Bloomberg) -- European Aeronautic, Defence & Space Co. said its Airbus SAS division, the world’s biggest maker of commercial aircraft, may lose some plane orders next year as the financial crisis continues.
Airbus hasn’t yet reported cancellations stemming from credit-market turmoil, “but I am sure that we will see more consequences next year,” EADS Chief Executive Officer Louis Gallois said today at a conference on the U.K. Aerospace in London. The order backlog remains “very strong,” and production is overbooked until 2011, providing a “buffer’ against any scrapped contracts.
Toulouse, France-based Airbus won orders for 756 airliners in the first 11 months of this year, two-thirds of the intake for the year-earlier period, as the global recession crimps demand for air travel. That compares with a 43 percent drop to 645 new orders in the period at competitor Boeing Co. China’s aviation regulator today said it will encourage airlines to cancel or postpone plane deliveries due next year.
Airlines are beginning to feel the effects of declining traffic and passengers’ choosing economy class over first or business class tickets, Gallois said. At the same time, carriers have been helped by falling oil prices, he said.
IATA’s Forecast
Worldwide airline traffic may fall by 3 percent next year as economies contract, the industry’s first decline since 2001, the International Air Transport Association said today. At the same time, carriers’ combined losses may narrow by half in 2009, to $2.5 billion, as oil prices ease and U.S. airlines are helped by earlier reorganizations, the trade group said.
The U.S. economy has been in recession since December 2007, while the European Central Bank predicts the economy of the 15 countries using the euro will shrink by 0.9 percent in 2009.
Boeing customers have canceled orders for six aircraft so far this year and deferred delivery dates for 100, with most of the changes coming from U.S. airlines, Liz Verdier, a spokeswoman for the Chicago-based planemaker, said today. That’s out of a record order backlog for 3,733 airliners.
“We manage our order book in the likelihood of cancellations and deferrals, so this is a little higher than normal but still within the range of what we account for,” Verdier said.
Airbus Chief Operating Officer John Leahy, the planemaker’s top salesman, said in early December that outside financing for aircraft may become more available in mid-2009 as banks that lost money on property come to favor assets that can be easily moved to where demand is strongest. Airbus can provide some funding to customers, though Leahy said the amount would be “as little as possible” because “we’re not a bank.”
Plane-leasing companies in the past “were the factor for stabilizing the market,” Gallois said today. “Now, as they are leveraged, they are in the same boat as airlines.”