Sales prospects for 787? Let Bair count the ways ...

FARNBOROUGH, England — Has Boeing got hot prospects for selling 500 more 787s? Or is it 1,000?

In an interview Tuesday at the Farnborough Air Show, Mike Bair, who leads the 787 program, clarified remarks by his boss, Boeing Commercial Airplanes chief Alan Mulally.

Bair also gave his view of the newly announced Airbus A350 XWB, a jet designed to compete against both his 787 and also the larger 777.

"We're in negotiations for nearly 1,000 more 787s from 30 more customers," Mulally said at the main Boeing news conference Monday.

The number startled listeners, because Bair had been claiming about 500 sales prospects.

The discrepancy, Bair said, was just a different expression of what's going on.

Mulally gave the outside limit for all airplane sales under negotiation, including all the options listed in all the proposals to airlines, which comes to about 1,500 airplanes, Bair said.

The 787 has a firm order book of 362. Adding in the ones customers have publicly committed to brings the total to 405. Hence Mulally's rough figure of 1,000 further sales prospects.

Meanwhile, Bair has been citing the much more conservative figure because he's not counting options and he's assuming that 40 to 50 percent of those sales campaigns will fail.

Tuesday, he bowed to Mulally's more optimistic gloss and said the sales campaigns for those 1,000 airplanes are far from flimsy.

"We don't send out paper everywhere. We don't paper the world and see what shows up," he said. "Interest has been expressed to generate a proposal."

Since Boeing identifies the 787 market size as 3,500 airplanes and bases its business case for the airplane on the assumption it will get half the market, 1,500 airplanes is close to the total number the business case predicts will ever be sold.

"It's going better than we expected," Bair said. "We like this activity."

The new challenger

How will sales hold up under threat from the new market entrant, the Airbus A350 XWB?

Bair said that a preliminary look at the loose A350 specification indicated Airbus is ceding the smaller end of the market, jets seating 210 to 250 passengers, to the 787-8, which has had 80 percent of 787 sales so far.

"They've decided not to pick a fight with the 787-8," Bair said.

His conclusion squares with remarks Monday by Airbus' top salesman, John Leahy. In an interview, he explained why Airbus was launching a bigger airplane first.

Leahy said most of the A350 order prospects are for larger models, and he speculated that the 787 may have "sopped up" demand in the smaller-size market.

But Bair said Boeing's 20-year jet sales forecast has about 1,600 airplanes in that size category, "a huge piece of the market."

Bair also questioned the soundness of Leahy's projections for the A350's performance.

"They claim an airplane that's bigger, that's heavier, with bigger landing gear, that goes further — and is more fuel-efficient," he summarized. "It's not obvious how that's going to work."

Leahy seems in his element at Farnborough, courting an audience with his salesmanship.

But for Bair, sales is the one job in his long Boeing career that he says he hated. Disliking the "dog-and-pony show" aspects of the air show, Bair expressed relief he's heading back to Seattle on Wednesday.

Dominic Gates: 206-464-2963 or dgates@seattletimes.com