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Here is a 2004 News Flashback that will make you LOL. (7E7=787)

Airbus has harsh words for Boeing’s 7E7 ‘hype’
Executive calls sales optimism a ‘figment of the imagination’

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
FARNBOROUGH, England — Airbus super-salesman John Leahy has never been shy when it comes to mixing it up in a war of words with The Boeing Co., his longtime rival.
But Leahy, head of Airbus commercial and the executive most often credited with the rise of Airbus as the world’s biggest commercial jet maker, outdid himself during an interview on the eve of the Farnborough Air Show.
He called Boeing’s confident predictions that it could have 200 orders for its 7E7 Dreamliner by the end of this year the stuff of public relations fancy, not reality.
The twin-engine, widebody jet is too small — the base 7E7-8 would carry around 217 passengers in a three-class configuration — and many airlines are telling Airbus they are not interested in ordering it, despite what Boeing says publicly, according to Leahy.
“It’s typical hype,” the American-born Leahy said.
“I’ve never seen an airplane where the market hype from the PR department is less in contact with the reality of the marketplace.”
Leahy will be among the Airbus executives taking center stage today when the European airplane maker, which last year delivered more jets than Boeing for the first time, presents its story to the media at the air show. Airbus will follow Boeing commercial airplanes boss Alan Mulally in back-to-back news conferences that traditionally kick off the weeklong show held every other year outside of London.
During the last few months, Boeing has landed 62 announced orders for the 7E7, which is due to enter service in 2008. None yet are firm.
All Nippon Airways of Japan has said it expects to reach a firm agreement with Boeing for its 50-plane launch order around September.
Air New Zealand and two European charter carriers have announced orders for the other 12 planes, though no firm contracts have been signed.
Mike Bair, senior vice president of the 7E7 program, has said about two dozen airlines have accepted proposals from Boeing for 7E7 orders totaling about 200 planes — that includes the 62 announced so far. Those airlines have put down security deposits to save a delivery position, and Bair has said he expects most of the commitments to become orders by the end of this year.
Boeing has also said airline interest in the 7E7 is so strong that it could have 500 orders by the time of the first flight of the 7E7 in 2007. That would make the 7E7 the best-selling Boeing or Airbus widebody jetliner ever — as measured from product launch to first flight.
Mulally told a group of European journalist in London yesterday that he considers deposits for those 200 planes “as good as a firm contract.”
Nonsense, Leahy said.
“Those numbers are purely a figment of the imagination of Boeing’s public relations department there in Seattle,” he said.
“We are in contact with the airlines. We talk to them on a daily basis. We know Boeing is going around and making a lot of presentations, but we don’t see anyone about to place orders.”
Why would Boeing executives risk their credibility by making such wild statements if they knew the orders would not materialize?

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