The 737 is an icon of efficiency in air travel and one of commercial aviation's greatest success stories. We are absolutely thrilled that the world's largest 737 operator -- Southwest Airlines -- is the owner of this historic airplane. Our partnership with Southwest and hundreds of other 737 customers has resulted in continuous improvements to the 737 and its ability to help our customers be successful. |
The employees of Boeing are wise, and they are intelligent, and they are thoughtful, and they know what we need to do. |
The interest for the airplane is phenomenal. |
The orders this year are ... an endorsement by the airlines of the world. What's being validated here is the Boeing Commercial Airplanes strategy for the last six years. That's the incredible story of 2005. |
The total cost to Boeing is similar to the previous contract offer and meets our definition of a reasonable settlement. |
The value of the Next-Generation 737 family continues to grow with the 737-700ER, and we are delighted to have ANA as the launch customer. This new 737 derivative is a great example of how Boeing helps our customers succeed by responding to new emerging airline business requirements. |
This is an amazing milestone that reflects how much our clients appreciate the 737's technology, efficiency, safety and profit-making capability. |
We also solidified the transformation of our product line, and the market validated our strategy with every order during the year. Our new portfolio of airplanes from 100 to 450 seats, combined with our global support services, put us in a great position for the long term. |
We believe this settlement provides what IAM-represented employees say they want in this contract, where they want it. |
We continued to stay focused on bringing efficiency and value to the airlines of the world through world-class services and airplanes that fly passengers how they want to fly -- point-to-point, non-stop, with more frequencies and more choices. |
We have had a lot of sales in the U.S., but when a lot of the bigger guys finish their restructuring and come back, they are going to need more airplanes for growth and replacement. |
We have worked very hard on our lean production system, which means we can make the transition in production rates with more stable employment. That is good for all of us. The more we can have stability and be able to go up and down in production rates with fewer changes is good for everybody and is very good for Boeing's competitiveness. And it is especially good for our employees. |
We look forward to 2006 and continuing to meet our commitments to our customers. |
We profoundly regret that these actions will impact the lives of so many of our highly valued employees. However it is critical that we take these necessary steps now to size the Commercial Airplanes business to support the difficult and uncertain environment faced by our airline customers. |
We remain committed to the 747X family of airplanes despite Singapore Airlines' announcement today, |