Who ranks first-Boeing or Airbus

Even after waiting for five long years, Boeing Co. has to wait a little longer to find out if it had topped the charts of jetliner orders in 2006 with Airbus as its main rival. The result will be out on Jan 17, when Airbus would announce its orders for 2006.

Boeing had easily broken its record of the orders of the year 2005 by getting 42 more orders in 2006 with the value of them being US$114 billion. It ended the year 2006 with net orders that included cancellations and change of orders, of 1050 jets.

The public relations firm of Airbus in Britain announced that a major order was expected on Monday. Airbus already had achieved 635 orders at the end of November; however, none is sure if it had received any orders in December to narrow the gap, as it had during the year 2005.

According to Wall Street Journal, Airbus might get 100 more single-aisle jets orders from the Malaysian Airline Air Asia.

Even if Boeing makes it up to the top in the orders for the year 2006, Airbus would retain the title of being the world's biggest commercial airplane maker. In 2006, Airbus announced that it would be delivering 425 jetliners, while Boeing would be delivering 398 jets.

"We have secured significant orders from customers around the globe and across our product line as we continue to build a strong, well-balanced backlog," Scott Carson, chief executive of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said in a statement.

After the Sep 11 2001 attack, the airline industry saw a downward trend, and Boeing cut down its production and gave pink slips to thousands of its employees after closing the plant at Renton and Everett. However, with the airlines outside the United States placing orders at Airbus and Boeing boosted the business since 2005. Due to this, Airbus had 1055 net orders while Boeing ended second with 1002 net orders in 2005.

As per the Statistics, Airbus delivered 378 jets compared to Boeing’s 290 in the year, 2005. Airbus has been the topper since 2003, and expects to lead even in 2007; however, industry analysts predict that Boeing would take the lead in 2008.

The wide body, or twin-aisle, planes have been the strength for Boeing compared over Airbus that had been embarrassed by A380 with its costly delays. Even though Airbus gained A380 orders in 2006 from Qantas and Singapore airlines, it was out beaten by Boeing’s 747.

While the freighter version 777 is being developed by Boeing, Airbus is developing A350XWB that is an extra wide body.