The new Boeing 747-8 model - Orders and Outlook ?

[JSACKS 0]

How come Boeing has only a few dozen orders for this magnificent looking variant of the magnificent 747-400 so far? I mean, it's as if AIRBUS had the whole world mesmerized with their giant A380. I just don't get it. The new 748 will fly about as far as the A380 and with 450 pax. It will also be a lot more efficient to operate than the existing 744 model. I just don't fathom how come Boeing hasn't sold at least 300 of these extraordinary looking jets yet, especially as Airbus is in deep reputational doo-doo now and the A380 program is months behind schedule with a lot of nasty financial implications for the company.JS

[tf51d 284]

>>How come Boeing has only a few dozen orders for this>magnificent looking variant of the magnificent 747-400 so far?> I mean, it's as if AIRBUS had the whole world mesmerized with>their giant A380. I just don't get it. The new 748 will fly>about as far as the A380 and with 450 pax. It will also be a>lot more efficient to operate than the existing 744 model. >>I just don't fathom how come Boeing hasn't sold at least 300>of these extraordinary looking jets yet, especially as Airbus>is in deep reputational doo-doo now and the A380 program is>months behind schedule with a lot of nasty financial>implications for the company.>>JSI think mainly because with the rise in fuel prices, fares will be going up which will reduce demand since people just won't be able to afford it any longer. So I think orders from all airlines will decrease for both Airbus and Boeing as a result, especially the large expensive aircraft.

[Guest]

Simple, the airline industry is in rather deep trouble financially and the future outlook doesn't look good.Most existing 744s are a decade or more from retirement and airlines are in no position to replace an almost new aircraft with another one at the moment.Add to that the uncertainty of what the future will bring in terms of passenger volumes and destinations and there is even less incentive to invest.Remember that the A380 has had no orders signed for some 18 months now, from well before the trouble became public (though I had serious doubts as to their policies before that, the entire construction system they chose is way too complex and expensive. They should have chosen a coastal location for the factories for example rather than Toulouse).They are firmly stuck at something like 120 orders, almost half those by a small handful of very large customers.I think the 748 like the A380 is the wrong aircraft at the wrong time. Both would have succeeded well in the mid 1990s, when the sky was the limit and airlines bought new aircraft like there was no tomorrow.But now they've found that there indeed may be no tomorrow and they've slowed right down, investing only where needed to replace airframes that have reached the end of their economic life and even then sometimes rather stretching existing resources or cutting schedules instead of spending money.

[tf51d 284]

I heard about a couple of weeks ago a story on the radio, that said Airbus will only produce 9 aircraft this year. Partly because resources are being diverted to the A380 and also a general slow down in orders.

[Guest]

There will be at most 9 A380s produced this year, and 12 next year.The plan was for something like 12 this year and 25 next year.It's mainly because of production problems, assembly is taking far longer than expected.That of course adds to the cost of the aircraft, on top of the reimbursements to customers who have to be compensated for delayed delivery.And it was already a project running at a serious loss for lack of sales... They need something like 250 sales at full price without repayments to get into the blue, they now have only 130 or so aircraft sold and most of those at steep discounts AND facing delayed delivery penalties.Count your losses...Then there's the scrapped A350 which has cost the European taxpayer a billion or more Euros so far, the pipedream that's the A400M which is a decade overdue and still exists only on computer harddrives, the A370 which is delayed and over budget already despite existing only as schematics, the A320 which needs a replacement or at least a makeover soon to remain a player.Sure looks like our taxes will go up again to give more "loans" to the boys in Toulouse soon.