Airbus, Boeing in a Numbers Battle Over Airplane Sales
It’s a measure of how competitive the commercial aviation business has become that the two global giants of the skies spent much of Tuesday arguing over which sold the most planes last year.
Airbus Industrie, the European consortium that has proved to be a dogged competitor to Boeing Co., fired the first round, claiming in a news release that it had sold a record 671 planes in 1997.
From Seattle, Boeing’s public relations department disputed the Airbus tally and said that figured another way, Airbus’ sales added up to fewer than the “unofficial” 560 planes Boeing sold in 1997.
Boeing could not offer its own official year-end number for a few days, however, spokeswoman Janice Hayes said, because the plane maker doesn’t release its numbers until it has had a chance to examine Airbus’ data.
Boeing distinguishes between what it terms “firm orders” and those that include various contingencies, Hayes said. By that measure, she said, Airbus had 460 orders.
The most recent official 1997 number for Boeing, as of the end of November, is 524 planes sold.
At Airbus, Boeing’s hairsplitting was met with its own argument. Spokesman Dave Venz said Airbus started differentiating among its various types of orders only when Boeing changed the way it counted orders.
“Historically, up until last year, we used to count sales on the basis of firm orders,” Venz said. “Then Boeing started throwing in handshakes, telephone calls and all that. Then we said, ‘Whoa! What’s this?’ ”
There’s another way to measure the plane companies’ success--by figuring out which received more money for the planes it sold.
Measured that way, Airbus said its 1997 orders--firm, contingent and all other categories--were worth $44.2 billion. Of those, the “firm” orders were worth $29.6 billion.
Boeing would not say how much it received for the approximately 560 aircraft, but the 524 planes sold through November were worth $38 billion, according to Hayes.
Boeing still leads handsomely in planes delivered, 375 to 182.
Airbus is ramping up, expecting to deliver 235 planes this year. Boeing has set an ambitious goal of shipping 550 planes by year-end.
Why all the fuss over the numbers? The two plane makers have been locked in a battle for the worldwide aircraft market for much of the last decade. Boeing has long seen itself as the leader in the world market. And with its late-1996 acquisition of McDonnell Douglas Corp., Boeing removed its remaining U.S. competitor, Douglas Aircraft.
However, in announcing the order figures Tuesday, Airbus Managing Director Jean Pierson again laid down the challenge, saying: “We are now well on course to achieving our objective of a consistent 50% market share early in the next century.”
