Gregory Polek has spent his entire career in aviation journalism with AIN, starting as a proofreader and assistant to then-managing editor Mary Mahoney in 1995 after serving an internship with&nbsp;New Jersey Monthly&nbsp;magazine and completing his B.A. degree in English/Writing at New Jersey’s William Paterson College. By 1997 Polek accepted a position as an associate editor, covering the regional airline beat for&nbsp;Aviation International News&nbsp;in place of retiring industry veteran Don Anderson. The assignment took Polek across North America and Europe to profile regional airlines varying in size and mission from the likes of floatplane operators Kenmore Air and Chalk’s Ocean Airways to regional jet operators such as SkyWest and American Eagle. Today, in his dual role as Air Transport Editor and International Airshow Editor, Polek writes, edits, and manages AIN’s commercial aviation content while overseeing each of the company’s daily international air show publications in Paris, Farnborough, Singapore, and Dubai. Most recently Polek has assumed oversight of daily coverage of the Helicopter Association International’s annual Heli-Expo convention.

Senior Editor

Gregory Polek

A particularly productive month of December for both Airbus and Boeing helped the world’s dominant airframe makers surpass commercial targets for 2013, leaving each with unfilled order totals of well over 5,000 airplanes. Airbus’s sales force saw gross order totals surge to 1,619 for the year, setting a new industry record for units by 11 and giving the European company its most valuable gross order intake ever at $240.5 billion based on list prices. Boeing, meanwhile, set a new industry record for deliveries, shipping 648 airplanes compared with 626 for Airbus.


As of January 1, Airbus carried a backlog of 5,559 airplanes worth $809 billion at list prices and accounting for eight years of production. On January 13, Airbus announced a 2.6-percent increase in list prices for its products that will apply through the end of 2014.&nbsp;Boeing didn’t estimate the value of the 5,080 airplanes that remain on its own record delivery backlog.


According to Airbus, decisions by customers to move toward larger aircraft in all segments (A321, A330-300, A350-1000 and A380) yielded a positive result on its revenues.


“These benchmark results are feeding nicely into our profitability targets, and I am proud to report that the trajectory is showing strongly upward,” said Airbus president and CEO Fabrice Bregier.


A firm order from Emirates for 50 Airbus A380s last month—an acquisition announced at November’s Dubai Airshow as a letter of intent—represented the most lucrative deal for the European airframer in December. All told, it collected firm orders for 211 aircraft, including 120 A320-family jets from three undisclosed customers.


For Boeing, the month of December saw its order totals increase by 319 airplanes, including 267 of its 737 narrowbody family. An order for 75 Boeing 737Max narrowbodies and another eleven 737-800NGs from FlyDubai during the last week of December ensured the U.S. airframe maker’s gross order figures would enter record territory.


In 2013, three Boeing programs set records for deliveries in single year. Boeing shipped 440 Next Generation 737s, ninety-eight 777s and 65 Dreamliners, which now fly with 16 customers. With the higher production rates achieved in 2013, all three Boeing Commercial Airplanes production sites—in Everett and Renton, Washington, and North Charleston, South Carolina—delivered a record number of airplanes.


By the end of the year Boeing reached its target of producing ten 787s a month. <a href="http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/2013-01-29/boeings-737-line-now-running-38-month">Rates for the 737 increased to 38 per month in January</a> and plans call for that number to rise to 42 by mid-year. Also in January, 777 rates rose from seven to 8.3 a month.&nbsp;

Airbus Takes Order Crown for 2013 While Boeing Sets Delivery Record

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