Boeing keeps sights set on sales goal

Boeing still believes it can reach its target of roughly matching jet deliveries with new orders this year, the aerospace company’s CE said Tuesday. A slowdown in sales of widebody jets has left Boeing less than half way to reaching its goal of a book-to-bill ratio of around one for the year, with deliveries in 2016 expected to be between 740 and 745 jets. “We continue to trend towards a book to bill of about one,” CEO Dennis Muilenburg said. Boeing had booked just 357 new orders as of its last update on Sept. 27, excluding 67 cancellations. That leaves its book-to-bill ratio at around 0.5 compared with orders for 499 jets and a ratio of 0.7 at the same time last year. The ratio last year reached 1.34. Analysts have grown increasingly skeptical Boeing can reach its goal this year, but Muilenburg said it wasn’t “a pressing business issue” if some orders slipped into the first half of 2017 and left the company short in 2016.<br/>