Boeing's order book fatter than Airbus'
European planemaker Airbus posted 1,341 net aircraft orders in 2007, trailing the 1,413 planes sold by Boeing in a record year at both companies, Airbus said yesterday.
Airbus said it took in 1,458 gross orders before cancellations, compared with a gross order tally of 1,423 aircraft at Boeing, which a source familiar with the matter told Reuters was set to announce more delays to its 787 Dreamliner.
The Airbus orders were valued at $157.1 billion at catalogue prices and brought the European company's backlog to 3,421 planes or six years of production.
"These are enormous numbers; it was a staggering year. Now it becomes a question of how we manage the backlog," Airbus chief Tom Enders said yesterday.
The planemaker, a subsidiary of European aerospace group EADS, kept its lead as the world's largest producer of large commercial aircraft in 2007, but lost to Boeing in the race for new orders for the second year running.
In 2006, Airbus sold 790 aircraft compared with 1,044 net orders for Boeing.
Airbus said that its 2007 deliveries reached a record of 453 aircraft, topping its published forecast of 440 to 450 planes.
Agencies
(China Daily 01/17/2008 page17)
