Boeing is on track for its biggest annual plane sales tally this year, beating last year's record and proving that airlines' demand for new aircraft shows little sign of slowing.
The Chicago-based plane maker is locked in battle with European rival Airbus for the largest number of orders, but has the edge in the lucrative market for wide-body planes, which sell for at least twice as much as the more common single-aisle planes.
The continued sales boom is a comfort for Boeing as it struggles to put together the first of its 787 Dreamliners, which are now six months behind schedule, mirroring delays Airbus experienced with its last new craft, the A380 superjumbo.
At the end of last month, Boeing had 922 firm net orders on its online order book, after adding 56 orders in October.
The total year-to-date figure now stands at 956, not including Cathay Pacific's announcement on Thursday that it will buy 17 more Boeing wide-body planes.
That means Boeing is closing in on last year's record tally of 1,044 net orders, with next week's Dubai Airshow promising further purchase announcements. At this time last year, Boeing had fewer than 800 orders for the year.
Last year Boeing beat Airbus in the annual race for orders for the first time since 2000.
But this year promises to be a closer contest, with Airbus's popular narrow-bodies outselling Boeing, and the company apparently moving on from a couple of years of dithering on the design of its mid-sized A350, and production problems on its A380 superjumbo.
At the end of September, Airbus already had 854 orders, more than its total for the whole of last year. Airbus's latest figures -- which are not adjusted to account for cancellations -- are expected on Friday.
The two companies are neck-and-neck on deliveries, when plane makers get the majority of payments for a plane. Airbus delivered 330 planes by the end of September to Boeing's 329.
Despite recent problems, Boeing's mid-sized 787 Dreamliner has racked up 288 firm orders so far this year, compared with 152 orders for Airbus's competing A350 XWB at the end of September, according to the Airbus online order book.
Airbus is still ahead in single-aisle sales, with 525 orders for its A320 line of aircraft, compared to 523 orders for Boeing's 737s so far this year.
Whichever company wins the annual order contest, it is likely that total orders between the two will break the industry record in 2005 of 2,057 orders, as airlines across the world respond to greater travel demand and look to get hold of new fuel-efficient models.
