Lag already observed in the previous crises

With more than 480 deliveries each planned this year, or at least that the record of 2008, Airbus and Boeing seem surprisingly well withstand the crisis in air transport. Yet, it cannot be said of their customers, the airlines set to lose $ 11 billion this year. Orders taken, certainly stung nose, with only 123 net orders for Airbus, with the goal of 300 orders for 2009 seems very compromised. But the market is not arrested, contrary to what has happened in 2001, and predictions of some analysts, building on a decline in the production of 30 to 40, are not being made. Airbus has only to reduce its production of single-aisle aircraft from 36 to 34 units per month, while his American rival plans to spend 7 to 5 Boeing 777 long-haul by months of June, 2010. It is therefore the Berezina announced for 2009. And 2010 is not so difficult to believe the two aircraft manufacturers, who feel able to maintain the number of deliveries next year.

This paradoxical contrast between the collapse of the carriers and the resilience of two major aircraft manufacturers has several explanations. Companies tend to order planes in times of prosperity, which they will be delivered a few years later, once growth result. Moreover, unlike the car, where it built cars before selling, aircraft manufacturers do launch the manufacturing of their devices after finding buyers, pay advances. They can cancel their order at the last moment, under penalty of losing the money already paid. These constraints, as well as aid for funding granted by the States, led to Boeing and Airbus to avoid a wave of cancellations.

However, if the manufacturers are not in the fireball of the crisis in air transport, the explosion shock wave end well by reach. Declines in orders of today are reductions in rates of tomorrow. Similarly, the deliveries reports certainly helped to avoid cancellations, but they will lead sooner or later work less. To not end up with arm, Airbus and Boeing aircraft have played on the mattress of orders in excess, but they have also been orphaned devices from other companies waiting to be delivered. An undetermined number of future deliveries was therefore used to offset a portion of the 117 cancellations recorded by Boeing and Airbus since January. In addition, airlines have developed hangar several centaines of aircraft around the world. Some of them to resume the air as the resumption of the traffic, resulting in new reports of deliveries and orders. All of which will result, in all likelihood, by a decrease in Airbus and Boeing production within a year or two, even though air transport will be resumed with growth. Lag already observed in the previous crises. Thus in 1990, during the first Gulf war, while flights were brutally emptied, Boeing and Airbus deliveries had continued to advance, until 1992, before falling in 1993 and touch the bottom in 1995, to not reset the increase in 1997. In 2001, the stall was immediate, but the trough of the wave is was reached only two years later, in 2003 and the re-engagement of the deliveries was reached in 2005.

Knowing it takes approximately eighteen months to Airbus and Boeing to adjust their rates of production, the impact of the current crisis could be felt late 2010 and until 2012 at the earliest. With the key of possible overmanning. Airbus executives realizes perfectly, which have multiplied the warnings in recent weeks on the theme: "We do not exclude to reduce production in the future", while that in internal discussions with the trade unions are well underway to find ways to adjust the smooth downsizing to a decline in activity.