[photopress:AIr_boeing_737_airframe.jpg,full,alignright]Boeing has a $3.8 billion order from Guangzhou-based Southern Airline for 55 Boeing 737 aircraft. Our illustration is of some of them being built. This order means that Boeing has moved yet further into the China market which is forecast within twenty years to become the second biggest airplane market.
Southern Airline now has 129 Boeing 737 airplanes, each of which, depending on configuration, has a capacity of around 100 passengers.
Southern Airline bought 10 Boeing 787-8 planes in August 2005 and signed another order for six Boeing 777 cargo planes last year.
In aicraft, once you have a customer it is a reasonable expectancy that you will sell more aircraft. An airline simply does not want to deal with the complexities of aircraft from different manufacturers. Indeed airlines tend to be put-off by the complexity of running more than two models from the same company. Stick to one manufacturer, one or two models and all of your maintenance and inflight crew can be shuffled around because they all have experience in type. Thus this latest 55 aircraft order is, for Boeing, merely the logical successor to the original orders.
Source: Shanghai Daily
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