Airbus falsifying sales figures to beat Boeing?

[Colonel Klink]

Chinese airlines behind a USD$10 billion plane deal that powered Airbus past Boeing in 2005 orders said they have not paid deposits, as would normally be required to count a deal as a firm order.

The planemaker said on Friday, however, that deposits had been paid and that it had satisfied the conditions for reporting the planes as firm orders.

Airbus came from behind in December to retain its crown in orders, surging forward with help from a 150 plane deal signed during a visit by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to France.

Yet airlines set to get the planes said deposits had not been paid, as they await a final decision on how the planes will be allotted among the six carriers involved.

If the 150 planes are not counted, Boeing beat Airbus in order intake last year for the first time since 2000.

"We have not made any down payment, as we still don't know how many A320 jets we will get," said an Air China official in comments echoed by other carriers.

A spokesman for Airbus said the deals were logged properly.

"All the conditions which we usually set before reporting firm orders have been met. These include government approval and payment of deposits," he said. He declined to give further details.

China has emerged as a major battleground between Airbus and Boeing and was a main driver behind a record year for them in 2005. Airbus booked 1,055 planes orders versus 1,002 for Boeing, both of them shattering previous records.

[PAXboy]

A commercial company making false statements to boost it's share price and standing in the world? Surely not. :rolleyes:

[What Red Line?]

Colonel Klink

Tell me this is a wind-up. You don't expect us to believe that an aircraft manufacturer would drop the odd "porky" do you?

Cease and desist man! Next thing you'll be reporting that Boeing isn't going to build the Dreamliner.

Enough of it!

[vapilot2004]

I honestly don't think they 'cooked the books' as a certain someone likes to say.............let's be clear - Airbus has governments and shareholders to answer to.

Despite the fact that 40 percent of Airbus' orders came in December :hmm: - I highly doubt anything glaringly fraudulent occured. What did likely happen is Airbus wisely used pressure and incentives to wring out as many orders as possible to close out the year.

The irregular bit comes when Boeing stopped counting Dec 31 while Airbus may have used the additional 17 days into 2006 to shore up some *cough* 2005 orders. So be it.

A small point made in a trade publication was that Boeing and Airbus counted the Chinese orders differently - had they used identical accounting methods, Boeing would have won this year's pixxing match by a few airframes.

What the big picture tells us is that it was a fantastic year for both manufacturers - as was graciously said by Boeing's Randy Baseler. I think we should focus on that.

You know, Airbus has come so far within the past few decades - and fair competition is good for all sides. :ok:

i know it's bad for me, but i'll get my asbestos suit....:E

[tallsandwich]

An organisation the size of Airbus / EADS / BAES, run by leaders who have not in the past few years, managed to learn the very important and high profile lessons of correct and timely Revenue Recognition at a corporate level? I sincerely doubt it.

[Curious Pax]

No idea of the real story, but my understanding was that the Chinese Aviation Ministry (or something like that, maybe a centralised purchasing company) orders aircraft, and then allocates them. So it may be that everyone is telling the truth - if Airbus have received the deposits from the central Chinese entity, but individual airlines haven't been told what they are having, and so haven't paid the deposits to central purchasing.