Boeing's BBJ Order Book Stands at 71

Boeing Business Jets said it has sold 14 more BBJs since last year's NBAA show, including four of the larger BBJ IIs. The total for the Next Generation 737 hybrid now stands at 71 sales.

The one-year tally hasn't been as large as in past years, but BBJ president Borge Boeskov said the sales cycle is somewhat down, and he expects it to match Boeing production rates of the BBJ -- from 18 to 24 per year -- in the next year or so. It is also likely that the acknowledged slow rate of completions has hindered sales in the past 365 days.

"There's been a lot of problems in the field of completions; airplanes are sitting way to long," said Boeskov. "The infrastructure for the completion phase is not good enough."

Some completions have taken as long as 18 months, with the best turnaround time being in the nine-to-ten-month time frame, according to BBJ vice president and COO Thomas Lindberg. They are figures Boeing is not proud of, which was one of the reasons that Boeing announced on Monday that Lufthansa Technik-which has "never been more than three to four weeks late" in completing BBJs-will take on the responsibility of finishing BBJs sold into the Boeing NetJets (Executive Jet) fleet.

In addition to LHT, Boeing's authorized completion centers are Jet Aviation Basel and Jet Aviation in California, Greenpoint, Associated Air Center, Raytheon and Ozark.

As of Monday, Boeing has delivered 46 green BBJs, with 17 in service that have accumulated about 4,500 hours. None of those are the BBJ II model, a business jet based on the 737-800. Boeing has sold six BBJ IIs, and will build eight in 2001.

Concerning the speculated-about BBJ III, which would likely be based on the 757 commercial airliner, Boeskov said Boeing has no plans to introduce such an airplane for at least another year.

The next couple years could also see development of a supersonic BBJ, which would piggyback off of the Boeing corporation's many years of supersonic research.

"Big Boeing has done a lot of supersonic work, and, yes, we are looking at how potentially you could put a supersonic business jet in the marketplace."

By Barry Rosenberg