The Boeing Company (BA) CEO: ‘Airbus A33O is an Older Technology Airplane’

The Boeing Company (NYSE:BA) CEO, Jim McNerney, has quashed concerns that recently released Airbus A330-Neo will pose immense competition to the Dreamliners that the company currently makes. McNerney, in an interview on CNBC, cooled off concerns of increased competition from Airbus reiterating it is an ‘older technology airplane’ that is only being improved and should not pose any threat to fuel efficient Dreamliners.

The Boeing Company (NYSE:BA)

“It is an older technology airplane that is being improved it will compete with brand new technology airplanes that we got across a wide spectrum of wide bodies,” said Mr. McNerney.

The CEO welcomed the competition from Airbus but emphasized The Boeing Company (NYSE:BA) has one of the best technology in the industry that should be more than able to compete with the A330 Neo.

The Boeing Company (NYSE:BA) has already delivered the first 787-9 to Air New Zealand with the CEO saying that the demand for the plane especially the stretch version is almost the same as to what was expected. Mr. McNerney also said that The Boeing Company (NYSE:BA) expected the demand for airplanes to be between the middle and bigger airplanes and not at the bigger or smaller airplanes.

Airbus CEO, Fabrice Bregier, has already rubbished McNerney claims that A330-Neo is an ‘older technology’ airplane saying that the company has studied how to reduce fuel burn for its airplanes something that should make them more fuel efficient compared to 787’s.

“We have studied how to reduce fuel burn so it will be more efficient regarding fuel burn than the 787 with a lower capital cost higher maturity, higher reliability so we have a market of more than 1000 aircraft to sell,” said Mr. Bregier

 Mr. Bregier remains confident on A330-Neo becoming a huge success in the highly competitive industry having received orders from the big players in the airline sector after just 10 days of active marketing. The CEO also said that this year will be crucial for the company at the back of the certification of the A350’S which they plan to deliver to their biggest customer, Qatar Airways. Airbus also plans to deliver about 10 A350’s a month, by 2018.

Mr. Bregier also reiterated that the company has zero regrets on deciding to build a manufacturing plant in Alabama that is up for open next year with the first delivery expected in 2016 to JetBlue.

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