Rodent Regatta

Boeing’s people are refuting a story in Business Week in which professor Alan MacPherson of State University of New York at Buffalo and co-author [of a study] David Pritchard say that the company will get out of the business of manufacturing commercial aircraft.

Currently, Boeing gets nearly 60% of its revenue from commercial airplanes. But, here’s what some facts show:

Other evidence supports their prediction: more than 30,000 layoffs from Boeing’s commercial-airplane division over the past two years, continued outsourcing of factory work to Asia and Russia, the sale or closure of 10 million square feet of factory space, and a 60% decline in Boeing’s commercial-airplane backlog since 2001. Four of Boeing’s six airplane production lines have backlogs of less than 50 aircraft—a paltry number, Pritchard contends. Generally, the industry considers a backlog of 100 jets or higher to be financially healthy.