Summary
Does this apple taste better than that orange?
If we temporarily lower production rates by a couple of aircraft a month on our narrowbodies (not the 30% the original Mini-Me Udvar-Hazy advocated), will it matter?
Will the apple taster better than the orange?
Analysis
Airbus has already committed to cutting narrowbody production rate from October from 34 to 32 aircraft/month, although these poor guys really need to study the Julian rather than the Pirelli calendar. These cuts are more a function of the poor credit-rating of many of their dodgy customers and far less an indiction of any collapse in the market. There is no collapse -- there is a surprising amount of stability, in fact.
Airbus doesn't see collapses in markets, even retrospectively. The A380 fiasco proves that point. The biggest aerospace embarrassment since Concorde.
What Jeff Turner is quite possibly hinting at here is exactly what Boeing was referring to before the end-June 787 delay. That it might b necessary to trim production on some programs to make way for ramp-ups on others.
Granted, there will be no mid-2010 787 ramp-up as certification will be mid-stream, but it is possible that Spirit could begging to divert a little manpower from the 737 to the787 line without major ramifications for either. There's certainly no aerospace justification for cutting back 737 production.
That would be my bet.
Spirit's strike-affetced 737 production rate is still only 23.5, although the figure is a fraction under 30 when discounting the three strike months of Sep-Nov 08.
Doug McVitie consults with leading institutions through GLG
Analyses are solely the work of the authors and have not been edited or endorsed by GLG.
