FLEET WATCH: Orders January 2009

Bleak month for widebody orders

Airliner net orders came in at only 15 for the month of January as 127 new orders were offset by 112 cancellations, with another 68 swaps.

US regional Pinnacle Airlines placed orders for 15 Bombardier Dash 8 turboprops while German business company Jetair Flug ordered four Bombardier Challenger 850s. In Europe, low cost Ryanair ordered 13 Boeing 737-800s while American Southwest Airlines ordered five 737-700s. Dubai-based leasing company LCAL and Russia’s S7 Airlines both cancelled Boeing 787 orders for 16 and 15 aircraft respectively. Kingfisher Airlines, America West Airlines and AerVenture cancelled a total of 12 Airbus A320 family. Irish finance house Aircraft Purchase Fleet took over Air One’s Airbus order for 44 A320s, 12 A330s and 12 A350s.

Airbus and Boeing net order figures were both negative for January. Airbus received five gross orders minus 13 cancellations so losing eight eight orders net, while Boeing took in 18 orders before 31 cancellations dropping 13. Canadian manufacturer Bombardier led the regional manufacturers for the month winning 19 net new orders while its Brazilian competitor Embraer counted 12. Germany’s Ruag received five net orders for its Do 228 New Generation.

Narrowbody gross orders totalled 22 for the month, led by 18 for the 737, after the 12 A320 family cancellations, the net total ended the moth at 10. There was only one widebody order in January, an A330 from lessor AWAS, but that was dwarfed by 32 cancellations. Turboprop orders came in at 20 while a total of 16 regional jets were placed with no cancellations.

Overall, the order backlog for airliner type of aircraft ended January at 8,460, down 78 on the previous month. Customers with the largest backlog to their names are China’s import/export corporation CASGC (292), lessors DAE Capital (200) and GECAS (178). Indonesia’s Lion Airlines has the largest backlog for a carrier with 175 followed by Emirates and Qantas with 172 each.

Note: The analysis is done on aircraft type basis and not on the user-end application. For example, Boeing 737 figures might include BBJs. The Bombardier CRJ type is classified as a regional jet and includes Challenger 850, 870 and 890.