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Airbus Expecting 50 Percent Drop In '08 Orders

John Leahy, Airbus' chief salesman, said the European aircraft maker expects to sell about 700 planes this year, down from more than 1,400 orders last year.

SINGAPORE (AP) — Airbus said Wednesday it expects half as many orders for new planes in 2008 as it got last year after receiving record orders in recent years and amid slower global growth.
 
John Leahy, Airbus' chief salesman, said at the Singapore Airshow that the European planemaker is likely to sell about 700 planes this year, down from more than 1,400 orders last year.
 
''The market, in terms of new orders, will be going down,'' Leahy told a press briefing. ''We have a record backlog so I would expect to see fewer and fewer orders as the market does cool off a bit.''
 
''By definition, the whole world is cooling down a little bit,'' Leahy said.
 
The 700 planes that Toulouse, France-based Airbus wants to sell will include more than a hundred A350s, a redesigned widebody 300-seat jet, and about 30 units of the A380, the world's largest commercial jet. Korean Air Lines Co. said Monday it will buy three more double-decker A380s on top of its existing order for five of the world's biggest commercial jets.
 
Leahy said the past three years have been the peak of plane orders and that manufacturers were now ramping up production to deliver them. Airbus had about 3,600 planes in its order backlog, he said, about the same number as its U.S. rival, Boeing Co.
 
Together, the rivals won a record 2,754 orders last year.
 
The biggest challenge the companies face is getting planes off their production lines fast enough to meet demand. At the end of 2007, the two companies together had enough airplanes on order to keep their factories busy for about five to six years.
 
Both companies have faced delays in deliveries. Airbus's first A380 was delivered nearly two years late last fall — a delay that slashed profits at parent company EADS.
 
Chicago-based Boeing last month said the inaugural flight for the 787 would be delayed up to three months, pushing delivery of the first plane into early 2009 — the third time the airplane has been delayed.
 
Airbus CEO Tom Enders said his company is learning from the mistakes that caused the A380's delay, and that it is making improvements in integrating production processes.
 
''We're taking quite a few lessons from our own failures on the 380,'' Enders said.
 
''The core of that problem was the missing thorough integration of processes inside Airbus,'' he said. ''We have changed that already in the last two years... and we're on our way to improving them further.''
 
Enders said Airbus was studying the production problems that Boeing is currently facing with its supply chain and slow progress on the assembly line, but said he was confident both companies' supply chains were up to par.
 
''I'm sure that Boeing has taken some lessons from our failures. We are in turn studying carefully what we should take from their problems on the 787,'' he said. ''For supply chain to come to that point is a major concern.''
 
''But we believe we have every reason to assume that our supply chain ... can match the ramp up that we and our competitor have ahead of us,'' Enders said.
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