BOEING built and delivered 763 airplanes in 2017, up from 748 jets the previous year. Its previous record was 762, set in 2015.
In a production record, Boeing released its 2017 jet-order and delivery data confirming that for the sixth year in a row it was the world’s top manufacturer of airplanes.
And the jet maker projects another boom year for airlines, and even higher production, in 2018.
Based on market pricing data from aircraft-valuation consultancy Avitas, those deliveries are valued at about $60 billion.
Boeing also reported a total of 912 net orders last year, up from 668 the previous year.
The list price of those orders, the vast majority of which are smaller single-aisle jets, is $134.8 billion. However, based on Avitas data, the actual value after standard discounts is about $63 billion.
AIRBUS PERFORMANCE
Meanwhile Airbus will report its final 2017 order and delivery figures expected to show it finished the year with just over 700 jets delivered.
An enlarged version of Airbus SE’s famously bulbous Beluga wing transporter is set to make its debut flight in the middle of the year after the first plane was rolled off the assembly line.
The aircraft, named for its resemblance to the dome-headed, hunch-backed white whale of the Arctic, is awaiting installation of its two engines before starting ground tests, with work on a second underway, Airbus said on 9 Jan, 2018.
The Beluga XL will feature the same low-slung cockpit as the original version developed two decades ago from the A300 model, allowing the front of the plane above it to hinge open, but will be based on Airbus’s A330 jet, making it six metres (20 feet) longer and a meter wider so that the payload capacity will be six metric tons (13,200 pounds) greater.
The five planes due to be built will shuttle between the company’s base in Toulouse, France, and sites including Broughton in Wales, where they’ll be able to collect both wings for the newest A350 wide-body, rather than just one using the current model.
SOURCES: BLOOMBERG NEWS/ Seattletimes.com
