Travel growth lifts Boeing net income

The desire by people to see the world is giving Boeing a huge lift, and executives at the aircraft maker say travel is a long-term growth industry.

After all, they reason, only about one in five people has ever flown on a plane, so there is plenty of upside to keep building them.

Airline profits remain healthy, and through February passenger traffic was up nearly 6 percent from a year ago, Boeing executives said Wednesday as they announced first-quarter earnings and revenue above Wall Street expectations.

The Chicago company also raised its profit forecast for the full year. Boeing shares were up 12 percent since the start of this year and 79 percent in the past 12 months as of Wednesday morning. They climbed another $5.12, or 1.6 percent, to $334.18 in midday trading.

Boeing has a backlog of 5,835 airliners valued at $415 billion — although airlines usually get big discounts. That’s enough to last several years if the company never won another order. This month it got a twin boost when American Airlines ordered 47 more of its 787 Dreamliner jets and Hawaiian Airlines signed its intent to buy 10 of the twin-aisle planes for international routes. The airlines’ decisions were a setback for Boeing European rival, Airbus.

Boeing said first-quarter profit rose 57 percent to $2.48 billion. Excluding non-repeating gains, the company said core earnings were $3.64 per share, easily beating analysts’ prediction of $2.59 per share, according to Zacks Investment Research.

Revenue grew 6 percent to $23.38 billion on delivery of 184 commercial planes

Twitter said it ended the quarter with a profit of $61 million, or 8 cents a share, on revenue of $664.9 million. Revenue from advertising reached $575 million, up 21 percent from a year ago. Excluding one-time items, Twitter said it earned 16 cents a share, to top the estimates of analysts, who had forecast the company to earn 12 cents a share on $606.9 million in total sales.