Boeing still on track to end 767 production

CHICAGO — Despite a stream of recent orders for its 767 widebody jet, Boeing Co. still plans to end production of it without a new Pentagon contract for air-refueling tankers, Chief Financial Officer James Bell said Tuesday.

The 767s, which first started flying in 1981, are being replaced in Boeing’s commercial lineup by the more fuel-efficient 787 once that jet starts operating in 2008. The company had hoped to build 100 767s for the Air Force as a tanker, but that controversial $23 billion deal was scuttled in 2004 after a military procurement scandal.

The government is still seeking to replace its aging tanker fleet, with likely candidates including Boeing’s 767 or 777, but Bell told analysts the company won’t wait for a final deal once its backordered 767s are built.

“We have no intentions of holding the 767 line open in anticipation of a contract,” he said at an investor conference in Miami.

The company got 19 new orders for 767s in 2005 and now has a backlog of 30. It delivered 10 of the planes last year.

“Right now we’ve had a lot of good order traffic on the 767, and it’s been extended because there’s a demand for that in the commercial application,” Bell said. “Once that goes away, we will close that line down if we don’t have another requirement from the government.”

Boeing initially planned to make a decision by mid-2005 on whether to shut down the Everett, Wash.-based 767 program. That was put off as a result of continuing interest in the 767 from the resurgent airline industry. No new timetable for a decision has been announced.