Boeing goes another month without a single airliner order
Boeing failed to sell a single commercial airplane but saw orders for 108 planes canceled in April as a sharp drop in air travel erased any demand among airlines for new jetliners.
It marked the second month this year in which Boeing received no orders, a fate that would have seemed impossible not long ago.
Boeing also indicated Tuesday that it is no longer certain about completing orders for another 101 planes and dropped them from its backlog, which dropped below 5,000.
Airbus said it received orders for nine planes in April, bringing its 2020 total to 299 planes after cancellations. The European plane maker said its backlog was 7,645 jets.
The COVID-19 outbreak has caused global air traffic to plummet and compounded a crisis at Boeing Co. that began with two fatal crashes and the grounding of its best-selling plane, the 737 Max.
Airlines are bleeding money and canceling thousands of flights while passengers remain too scared to fly. Airlines have grounded 16,000 planes — nearly two-thirds of the world’s fleet — and they are delaying deliveries of jets that they agreed to buy before the pandemic.
Air travel in the US is down more than 90% from a year ago, and global traffic has seen a similar plunge.
Boeing CEO David Calhoun said air travel will recover so slowly that “most likely” one of the major US airlines will go out of business.
“Something will happen when September comes around,” he said on NBC’s “Today” show. “Traffic levels will not be back to 100%, they won’t even be back to 25(%). Maybe by the end of the year we approach 50(%).”