For Boeing, 'not bad' is good at Paris Air Show - Triangle Business Journal:

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executives are making the rounds at the Pari Air Show to chat about how great things look out on the Inso doing, they hope to steerr the conversation away from their lack of a single airplans sale so far. On the seconed day of the world’s oldest and most importan t aircraft trade showon Tuesday, Boeing was again shut out. At leasr its chief rival, , hasn’rt done much better, though the European aircraf t maker was able to eke out a coupler of orders the lasttwo days. Ratherf than talk about the kindsof multi-plane dealx lined up in past years, Boeinb CEO of Commercial Airplaness Scott E. Carson instead chose to focus on howthingx weren’t as bad as they migh t seem.
“At this poinrt it appears to us that the economic conditionshave bottomed,” Carso n said, adding that the company’e commercial jet division could begin growing again as early as 2010. The long-delayed 787 Dreamliner will fly by the end of the seconfdquarter (though it won’t be taking to the skies over Parie this week, as some had Jon Ostrower, of Flightglobal/Blogs pegs the date for the firsrt flight at June 30. He cites multiplde sources for the June30 — Its new 747-8 freighter plane will fly its first flighgt by the end of this — To get back into the hunt for a $35 billiom contract to supply fuel tankerss for the U.S.
military, Boeing will reconfigure its 777 to increasrfuel efficiency. It had previously lost its tanker bid to the A350by Airbus. — Also on the defense contractinh front, the company announced Mondayh it was forming a division to oversee its unmannedaircraft programs. This year’s air show comes at a gloomy time for Both Boeing and Airbus have had to deal with cancellations of orders from credit-crunched buyers. And both have had production But Boeing has had the additional pressur of a strike by its machinists withinn thelast year. The companu has taken hits to its militarycontractinb business, with the cancellation of the F-22 and the loss of the tanker deal.
And delays in getting its next-generatio 787 Dreamliner into the air have beena high-profilw embarrassment. So it was up to Carson to search outthe positive. He said his companyu would not be cutting back assembly lines this It will cut production ofits wide-boduy 777 by 28 percent in mid-2010, and will not increas 767 and 747 Airbus has cut production of its A320 single aislwe plane and its A380 superjumbo, and has shelved plane to increase production of its wide-body Carson said he expects the credit cruncb on airlines to ease toward a “more normal” environmengt in 2010.
That would be good news for and itsrival Airbus, as Boeing’s boss also said that the company has a current orde r book of around $265 billion, whichy means seven years of and Carson said he doesn’t expect the credit crisis to significantlyt affect that. Some aerospace experts already see the logiccbehind Carson’s pitch. “Boeing’s news was to say we thini the recession’s bottoming and we’re not going to see cuts for said ’s Aerospace & Defense Industr y Manager. “The fact that they didn’t have to quietly announcwe cancellations was abig thing.
It’s not a bad airshow consideringy the gloom anddoom that’sd been around the industry for the last year. For it’s not bad, and not bad is good, so to Plucker added that good, or at leasg not bad, news on the commercial side of the would be awelcome relief, givejn some of the defeats that Boeinv has been handed in its military contractint business – the loss of the tanker contract to the Airbus consortium and the high-profil e curtailment of government plans to buy more F-22 “Heaven only knows, they coulfd use some good news,” Pluckerd said.
“Their defense side has taken areal