DALLAS — Boeing Co. posted its best year on record for jet-freighter orders in 2011, with 79 planes valued at $19.5 billion. A repeat performance looks out of the question.
The world’s largest maker of cargo aircraft hadn’t logged a new freighter deal in 2012 through Tuesday, a dry spell that matches the worst start to a year for such purchases since 2009.
Freighter demand is wilting along with global air shipments as China’s economy cools and Europe’s debt crisis deepens. Those pressures on cargo carriers are erasing any chance for Chicago-based Boeing to approach 2011’s freighter deals, said Ken Herbert, a Wedbush Securities analyst in San Francisco.
International air-cargo shipments fell 2.5 percent worldwide through April, even as industrywide capacity grew 1.8 percent, the International Air Transport Association trade group said.
Cargo-only aircraft handle about 60 percent of global air-freight shipments, while passenger planes fly the rest, Tom Crabtree, regional director of cargo marketing for Boeing, said. Boeing has about 90 percent of the market for new freighters.
