"The planned rate increase is aimed at satisfying continued strong demand," the manufacturer said. "In addition, the company continues to study further potential 737 rate increases, given continued customer demand."
Boeing indicated earlier this year that it was leaning toward raising production rates for both the 737 and 777 families (ATWOnline, March 18). Yesterday's announcement made no mention of 777 production rates.Rival Airbus in March announced an increase in the monthly A320 family production rate in December from the current 34 to 36 and last week revealed that is considering upping the monthly rate to 38 (ATWOnline, May 12).
Boeing Commercial Airplanes President and CEO Jim Albaugh said, "Even through the global economic downturn, our diverse 737 backlog has remained very strong. Increasing the 737 production rate is the right thing to do to meet the growth and fleet replacement needs of our customers."
Added VP-Marketing Randy Tinseth, "The global economy continues to recover this year and we believe that airlines will return to profitability in 2011. We believe that there will be an increased demand for airplanes, especially in the market served by the Next-Generation 737, in 2012 and beyond."
(Aaron Karp - ATWOnline News)
No comments:
Post a Comment