Boeing, Airbus orders muted amid supply chain woes

FARNBOROUGH, England — Massive airplane orders, hundreds deep in recent years, were absent from this year’s biggest air show. The focus instead was on struggles at Boeing and Airbus to ramp up airplane production while battling a hangover from the pandemic that was marked by seesawing output.

Many of the issues, particularly training new workers, will take years to fix, analysts say, meaning lingering headaches for airlines, suppliers and the manufacturers themselves — and a shortage of new, more fuel-efficient planes.

“It’s a fair sentiment on the part of the supply base and the airlines to say that we failed our commitments to them in terms of being timely, in terms of predictability,” said Ihssane Mounir, Boeing’s senior vice president of global supply chain and fabrication, during a panel at the Farnborough Airshow outside of London last week. “So obviously, people start doing their own planning and their own second-guessing.”

A roadmap of the next few months of production is emerging this week. Airbus on Tuesday said its adjusted profit in the last quarter fell 56% from a year earlier, mainly because of charges in its space business. The European jetmaker had previously cut its aircraft delivery targets for the year as it isn’t building planes as fast as it planned to.

Boeing reports results before the market opens on Wednesday. Wall Street analysts expect the company to post another loss for the second quarter and possibly the next.

At the show, which concluded Friday, Boeing racked up 96 orders and commitments, including previously made sales that were firmed up, while Airbus had 266, far shy of the 826 orders during the Paris Air Show a year ago, according to a tally from consulting firm Ishka. Paris and Farnborough alternate hosting the expo each year.

One standout was Korean Air’s order for up to 50 Boeing wide-body planes, including the 777X, which Boeing is working toward getting certified by regulators. The carrier also has Airbus A350-1000 jets on order. As both manufacturers grapple with production strains, Korean Air CEO Walter Cho quipped during the Boeing order signing: “Whichever comes first will become our flagship, whoever’s on time.”

The muted order tally during the show came as both manufacturers are largely sold out of narrow-body jets like the Boeing 737 Max and Airbus A321neo through much of this decade, if not longer. Boeing has an overall backlog of close to 5,500 planes, while Airbus has more than 8,000 on order. Many airlines from United Airlines to Air India have also stocked up on new jet orders as travel rebounded in the pandemic.

Boeing’s presence at the air show was notably modest — it didn’t bring any of its commercial aircraft for flight demonstrations while it focused on its safety crisis and manufacturing issues. Arlington, Virginia-based…