Fears Of An Aircraft Order Bubble

It is a truism of statistics that two people can study the same data and see radically different outcomes. Such is the case with the large commercial jet market. First, the facts: Airbus and Boeing took more than 2,200 net orders in 2011, twice the level of 2010 and far above the 1,011 jets they delivered. The two airframers are sitting on backlogs equivalent to about seven years' worth of output. And production increases underway will soon have Airbus churning out 42 A320 narrowbody jets a month and Boeing the same number of 737s by 2014, with talk of going even higher.

To Adam Pilarski, senior vice president at aviation consulting firm Avitas, it is all too good to last. He believes high fuel prices, plentiful financing backed by government export-credit agencies and aggressive selling by two airframers aiming to hold off new competitors have created a hyper demand that is unsustainable. "If you want to buy a new aircraft, you have to wait years for it," he says. "To me, that's a sign of a bubble." http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/aviation_week/on_space_and_technology/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&newspaperUserId=a68cb417-3364-4fbf-a9dd-4feda680ec9c&plckPostId=Blog%3aa68cb417-3364-4fbf-a9dd-4feda680ec9cPost%3acbc39e6b-d381-4909-bf5d-981f6b1839fa&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest