Boeing orders plummet by 53%

"Boeing commercial aircraft orders more than halved last year, as demand from airlines plunged from the record levels reached in the three previous years. Deliveries also dropped sharply as the leading US exporter was hit by an eight-week strike by its assembly workers during the autumn, allowing Airbus, the rival European aircraft maker, to re-establish its leadership of the global commercial aerospace industry.

Airbus, part of EADS, the leading European aerospace and defence group, will announce its full-year numbers next week, but already by the end of November it had surpassed both the orders and delivery totals reached by Boeing for the full year.The US group, led by Jim McNerney, chief executive, has suffered a year of serious setbacks in its commercial aircraft operations, as the long period of industrial strife added to the embarrassing and increasingly costly delays in two of its flagship new aircraft development programmes." Next.