Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 26, 1991 TAG: 9102260422
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-3 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Short
The Seattle-based company, which has orders for 1,838 planes, predicted that airlines would buy 9,000 new airplanes worth $617 billion from the world's leading airplane builders between now and 2005.
Boeing said this would mean that, based on inflation, the world's airlines would take delivery of an average of $41 billion worth of airplanes in each of the next 15 years, compared with an average of $16 billion each year during the last two decades.
Some analysts questioned Boeing's optimism, noting that even short-term predictions have been difficult because of unstable fuel prices and huge drops in traffic because of fears of terrorism.
They noted that strong carriers like American, United and Delta had shown unexpectedly heavy losses in the fourth quarter because of the big increase in the cost of fuel and a downturn in traffic.
"They're a little too optimistic with respect to the number of aircraft to be delivered and the financing that would be available," Peter Aseritis, an aerospace analyst for First Boston Corp., said.
But John Hayhurst, Boeing's vice president of marketing, said traffic had dropped severely in 1973 and in the early 1980s but had come back strong, averaging growth of 7.2 percent a year since 1982.
-The New York Times
by CNB