Airbus Scrambles to Keep Up With Orders

Airbus Industrie, the world’s No. 2 commercial jet maker, said its production lines are struggling to keep up with surging demand but warned that aircraft prices are still too depressed to achieve profitability soon. “It is stretching the imagination to keep up with the throughput we’ve got now,” Ian Massey, financial controller for the European consortium, told analysts and investors at a meeting in New York. He said its plants are having more trouble getting the parts they need as Airbus boosts output 29% to a record 295 planes this year. Airbus officials have rarely said so explicitly that they are vulnerable to the same problems that beset rival Boeing Co. That Seattle-based company plunged to a loss in 1997 after its factories were jammed in an attempt to double production. The remarks also make plain that neither of the world’s only makers of large commercial jets is benefiting from one of their greatest order booms ever. Many of the jets both companies are now making were sold at rock-bottom prices as a discounting war intensified in 1996 and 1997. Although they’ve raised list prices and spoken publicly about ending the war, Airbus executives said it could be several years before either company sees any effect on profits. Boeing shares fell 50 cents to close at $35.75 on the New York Stock Exchange. Airbus is not a publicly traded entity.