4/09/2013

Why is Leahy so pessimistic?

Airbus Salesman John Leahy seems not to be too optimistic about selling a lot of aircraft at this year's Paris Air Show. He still expects to sell around 750 aircraft this year. At the end of March there were sold 431 aircraft according to the published Excel Sheet on their website. Additionally, we know that Lufthansa will buy another 100 A320 and 2 A380, Turkish will buy 83 A320 and Mandala 18 A320 through Tiger Airways exercising options (although Mandala will probably then cancel their old order for 25 A320's).
Before cancellations this would be then 633 orders. Knowing that there are a lot of decisions still looming this year and that not only the Paris Air Show but also the Dubai Air Show is coming, I would be surprised if the orderbook for 2013 would only see 750 orders. But maybe Leahy was talking about net orders and he already knows that Kingfisher will cancel all their outstanding orders this year. Also, there are outstanding orders for United and Northwest (now Delta of course) for A320's and I do not expect them to be filled. Mexicana is now defunct and their 4 open orders will sooner or later also disappear.

Turkish Airlines orders more Narrowbodies

As I envisioned here, Turkish Airlines will not just rely on Airbus for their future narrowbody fleet. Today THY announced that they placed orders for 20 B737-800, 40 B737MAX-8 and 10 B737MAX-9. THY also placed 25 options. On March 15 Turkish Airlines announced to buy 20 A321, 4 A320neo and 53 A321neo and placed 35 options for further A321neo.