Boeing loses Qantas order for 15 Dreamliners

Leading aircraft manufacturer Boeing lost 15 orders for the 787 Dreamliner from Qantas Airways, formerly the model’s biggest airline customer, amid slumping demand for international travel.

The canceled aircraft were scheduled for delivery by 2015 and the airline will delay taking another 15 787-8s by four years, Sydney-based Qantas said in a statement. The changes weren’t influenced by Boeing’s announcement this week of a design issue with the planes, and the cancellation leaves the carrier with 50 Dreamliners on order, Qantas said.

The cancellation, valued at as much as $3.1 billion based on Boeing’s current list prices, follows the fifth delay of the 787, already two years behind schedule. Boeing has lost orders for 58 Dreamliners this year as carriers struggle with record declines in passenger traffic and the International Air Transport Association forecasts industry losses worldwide may total $9 billion in 2009.

“Boeing is really facing a crisis that they will ultimately surmount, but they need to be very careful of a perceived loss of confidence,” said Michel Merluzeau, an aviation analyst at G2 Solutions in Kirkland, Washington. “The cancellation is a serious worry to the 787 programme. I suspect this won’t be the last.”

Boeing, based in Chicago and the world’s second-largest commercial-plane maker, fell 65 cents, or 1.5 per cent, $41.88 in trading in New York Stock Exchange composite trading and has plunged 39 per cent in the past year. Qantas shares rose 1.8 per cent, to A$2.01 at the close of Sydney trading.

Qantas’s first batch of Dreamliners, 15 aircraft for its Jetstar discount carrier’s international routes, will be delivered from mid-2013, about three years later than planned.

“Delaying delivery, and reducing overall 787 capacity, is prudent,” Chief Executive Alan Joyce said in the statement. “Qantas announced its original 787 order in December 2005, and the operating environment for the world’s airlines has clearly changed dramatically since then.”

Qantas and Japan’s All Nippon Airways Co will jointly remain the Dreamliner’s biggest airline customers with firm orders for 50 aircraft each. “We are working Qantas to make changes appropriate to the current climate,” said Jim Proulx, a Boeing spokesman in Seattle, where Boeing’s commercial aircraft operations are based.