The rise of power for the dollar has helped airlines with fuel pricing. Today, (as of this morning), the price per barrel dropped $2.40, and it even managed to be as low as $142.01. Hopefully the dollar will continue to gain strength after losing so much power to other currencies, such as the Euro, in the past few years. Yet I do not think that a stronger dollar will do too much / help lower oil prices for Airlines in the long run. As of now, most American airline stocks have risen, up 1.87% or .28.
I think Ex-American Airlines CEO Robert Crandall said it best, “I’ve never invested in any airline. I’m an airline manager. I don’t invest in airlines. And I always said to the employees of American, ‘This is not an appropriate investment. It’s a great place to work and it’s a great company that does important work. But airlines are not an investment.’ A lot of people came into the airline business. Most of them promptly exited, minus their money.”
On Thursday, The Boeing Company announced their deliveries for the Second Quarter of this year. This quarter, 126 commercial aircaft have been built, making them more efficient than last quarter (which had 115 deliveries). Also note that Boeing has been on target in the military side of deliveries as well, performing the same / better than Q1 of this year in that region of their market.
So far, Boeing has 40 more deliveries than EADS’ Airbus. However, Airbus has yet to release a report for the month of June. In the past few years, Boeing has surpassed Airbus in the numbers for deliveries and orders. If we look at the numbers of the past few years (source: wikipedia.com - based on orders / delivery data), we see that Airbus looks like it will catch Boeing soon / surpass Boeing. I’m curious to see what happens.
And some other news from that front, Japan’s ANA is thinking about purchasing the A380. I don’t expect their revenue to ever exceed the €11 billion dollars already spent on development for that airplane, but I’m sure everyone in Toulouse would be happy to make some money off of it. Hopefully Airbus’ research may reduce R&D costs for the A350.
