BOEING : FUNDAMENTAL ANALYSIS + PRICE ACTION + NEXT TARGET

The 737 MAX flight ban and the COVID-19 pandemic combined caused demand for Boeing commercial aircraft to decline to start in 2019. Cargo aircraft has been a rare source of positive momentum in the company's commercial aircraft business. Supply chain bottlenecks and a sharp decline in long-haul passenger flights, which can carry significant amounts of cargo on the belly, have increased demand for dedicated cargo aircraft.

However, Boeing's recent level of order and delivery activity in the freighter market does not appear sustainable. A large supply of used aircraft suitable for conversion to cargo aircraft, growing competition from Airbus, and new emissions regulations will deeply reduce Boeing's cargo aircraft business by the end of the 2020s.

The 737 MAX crisis has decimated Boeing's narrow-body franchise. To be fair, deliveries resumed last year, and order activity began to pick up. Nevertheless, Boeing 737 MAX deliveries still lag far behind those of the Airbus A320neo family, and the 737 MAX order book remains much smaller than it was a few years ago.

Because of this, Boeing is particularly reliant on wide-body aircraft, where the company has a stronger market position than Airbus. However, demand for passenger wide-body aircraft has plummeted as the pandemic and its accompanying international restrictions on long-haul travel have led to a collapse.

As a result, cargo planes suddenly became an important part of Boeing's range. Between April 2020 and the end of August 2021, Boeing delivered 123 wide-body aircraft, including a total of 46 passenger models. The company also delivered 14 Boeing 767s to its defense division for conversion to the KC-46A Pegasus military tanker. Cargo aircraft accounted for the remaining 63 wide-body aircraft: more than half of the total deliveries.

During the same period, Boeing received 136 gross orders for wide-body aircraft. This number includes only 33 orders for passenger wide-body aircraft, 29 orders for military tankers, and 74 orders for cargo aircraft. (Moreover, the number of canceled orders far exceeded the number of gross orders for Boeing widebody passenger aircraft.)

The recent surge in demand for new cargo planes won't last more than a few years. First, the pandemic caused temporary outages, which increased the workload of dedicated cargo planes. As noted above, the sharp decline in passenger traffic has taken a significant amount of capacity out of the air cargo market. In addition, global supply chain problems have caused some shippers to resort to air freight for goods that would normally be shipped by sea. These disruptions will not last forever.

Second, a huge number of wide-body planes are idle because of the pandemic. Many of them will eventually be converted to cargo planes rather than return to passenger transportation. Indeed, Boeing's long-term market forecast calls for only 890 new freighters over the next two decades, compared to 1,720 conversions of passenger planes to freighters.

Third, under current emissions regulations, Boeing will have to stop producing all existing models of cargo aircraft by the end of 2027. This may provide short-term sales growth as some customers seek to buy discounted 767F and 777F models before Boeing ceases production. But it also means that the industry giant will have to develop a new freighter soon to continue this line of business.

Boeing has dominated the market for new cargo planes in recent years. Airbus began shipping a cargo version of its A330 in 2010, but the A330-200F has only received 38 orders in its lifetime. However, Airbus intends to change its fortunes in the future. It recently began selling a freighter based on the much more fuel-efficient A350, which is scheduled to enter service in 2025.

Airbus has not yet announced orders for the A350 freighter, but company executives have said that numerous cargo airlines are interested in it. Meanwhile, Boeing is considering a cargo version of its next-generation 777X but has not yet made a decision. In the short term, it needs to certify passenger versions of the 777X first.

As a result, Airbus may gain a significant advantage over Boeing in selling next-generation cargo planes to customers for whom low fuel costs and emissions reductions are paramount. This would prevent Boeing from repeating its current dominance of the freighter market after 2025.

Boeing's estimate of 890 new freighters over the next 20 years implies an average of less than 45 deliveries per year. If Airbus can capture nearly half of the market, Boeing's annual cargo aircraft deliveries could drop to 25 units by the end of the 2020s, well below recent levels. The shrinking freighter business makes a resurgence in demand for widebody passenger jets even more important to Boeing's turnaround prospects.