Boeing Holds to Production Targets as Airlines Idle More Jets

Boeing Commercial Airplanes chief Scott Carson doggedly insists his company won’t have to cut production this year.

Boeing’s customers have financing lined up to pay for all new jet deliveries planned for this year and into 2010, Carson said Tuesday, speaking at an investor conference in New York. “We believe every one of the airplanes scheduled for delivery this year will be delivered,” he said.

Production cuts may come in the second half of 2010, he suggested — management evaluates that on a monthly basis — but for now, airlines continue to replace older gas-guzzling jets with more-efficient new ones.

His comments come even as U.S. airlines announce plans to put more planes on the ground in response to falling air travel projections. On Tuesday, Delta announced it’s cutting 10 percent of its international capacity. United Airlines one-upped that, announcing a 15-percent cut in its overseas seats. American Airlines parent company AMR is trimming its inernational capacity by only 2.5 percent, but it’ll cut its domestic seats by 9 percent.

Last year, airlines worldwide put 1,200 jets into storage in the desert, and a recent report projects another 400 planes will be grounded in 2009. And Tuesday’s cuts are particularly significant, given that airlines make bigger margins on long-haul international flights.

Despite Caron’s confident comments, all that suggests production cuts are in order for both Boeing and Airbus — especially after Boeing gave 60-day layoff warnings to 452 production workers last month. Go-to analyst Richard Aboulafia at the Teal Group says says the economic crisis has created so much uncertainty that nobody really knows what’s going to happen. “There are absolutely no useful indicators at this point,” he told Aviation Week.

Boeing did get some good news Tuesday, when Delta said it plans to keep its orders for 18 787s. The planes had been ordered by Northwest Airlines, which Delta acquired through merger last year, and there had been a ton of speculation that Delta would dump the Dreamliner. Apparently not.

Boeing also made some good news, announcing it has leased 25 of its short-range, 100-seat 717 jets to Mexicana, which plans to use them for its low-far division, Mexicana Click. Sixteen of those planes have been sitting idle since last year, when cash-strapped Midwest Airline returned them to Boeing Capital Corp., its jet-leasing division.