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Introduction

July 25, 2016, © Leeham Co.: It wasn’t a good two weeks for wide-body airplanes.

Week 1: Virtually no new orders for wide-bodies were announced at the Farnborough Air Show.

Airbus, responding to a leak to the Paris newspaper La Tribune, confirmed it will reduce production for the A380 from 20/yr in 2017 to 12/yr in 2018—returning the program to a loss.

Boeing firmed up an MOU announced at the Paris Air Show with Volga Dnepr for 20 747-8Fs, but wouldn’t say how many are firm orders and how many are options.

Week 2: Boeing took nearly $1.7bn in after-tax write downs for the 787 and 747-8 programs.

American Airlines rescheduled all of its Airbus A350 XWB orders for two years to preserve cash.

And, while not directly tied to wide-bodies per se, Delta Air Lines announced it will reduce its trans-Atlantic services for a variety of reasons. Most of these services are performed with wide-body aircraft.

Summary

• Boeing has just 34 wide-body orders through July 19.
• Airbus has 56 wide-body orders through June 30.
• Farnborough orders not yet included.
• A “bubble burst” or just part of a normal cycle?