Boeing Received Zero Orders for New Jetliners in January
Taylor Rains February 12, 2020
January 2020 was Boeing’s worst month yet, reporting zero orders for new jetliners, and delivering only 13. The string of bad performance seems to be the new norm for Boeing, which can be contributed to the grounding of the 737 MAX in March 2019.
Previous January Orders
January is typically a slow month for aircraft orders, so low orders are expected, but zero is surprising, considering the company managed to win 45 in January 2019. As a matter of fact, Boeing has never had zero orders in January, although it came close in 2013 when it won just a single order of two 737 aircraft. Although Boeing had a slow start in 2013, it still tallied over 1,300 net orders for the year, which is the second-highest count in the company’s history, but I doubt 2020 will see the same success. With the grounding of the 737 MAX, regime change, and continued investigations and lawsuits, it is going to take the company a bit of time to right its wrongs.
Airbus’ High Order Month
Although Boeing may have netted zero orders for January, Airbus won a whopping 296 for commercial jetliners (before cancellations). The orders included two from U.S. companies, Spirit Airlines and Los Angeles-based Air Lease Corporation, and brought the manufacturer’s total order count to 20,382. Here’s the breakdown of January orders:
- Spirit Airlines: 100 A320neo family aircraft
- Air Lease Corporation: 50 A220-300s, 25 A321neos, and 27 A321XLRs
- Cebu Pacific: Five A320neos and ten A321XLRs
- Air Senegal: Eight A220-300s
- China Aircraft Leasing Group Holdings Limited (CALC): 40 A321neos
- BOC Aviation Limited: 20 A320neos
- Air France: Ten A350-900s
- Air Lease Corporation: One A350-900
The company delivered 31 aircraft this month, with the most notable being the delivery of the first A320neo to Batik Air. As of January 31st, Airbus has delivered 12,657 aircraft.
Quite surprising given the latest news that Boeing give airlines loads of extra items when you buy an aircraft such as spare ladders in the tail structure and various other items left in the structure of the aircraft including in the fuel tanks. The latter is perhaps not the best idea they have come up with. Seriously it would appear that final inspection of work on building planes seems to be dropped by Boeing leading to all sorts of junk being left in the planes by workers probably who are under a performance programme that is only interested in the number of widgets they fit every hour. Would you happy with a car where you are likely to find the assembler had left his food box in the trunk and the odd nut in the sump of the motor? Boeing is going to struggle to ever recover from its recent cost cutting approach.
Boeing are now suffering from a plan to "maximise shareholder value" (increase profits to me and you) by aggressive cost cutting. Many companies around the world are following this path - with employees and customers being the ones that suffer. Eventually, they run out of things to cut but by then the customer has noticed and taken their business elsewhere. The good old fashioned way of being bigger by being better is too medium term for most CEO's life expectancy in the roll. Eventually, the pigeons come home to roost - they seem to have settled in at Boeing Field.
Boeing "shot themselves in the foot", for discontinuing the 757. The Max 737 is not a replacement for it.
Nice. I see this as payback for all the Boeing crookery over the years.