2014年，波音能否飞得更高

    波音公司可能会在中期和长期阶段面临严重困难。正如奥本海默公司的耶尔•雷纳尔和威廉•李担心777客机在777X交付之前会卖不出去一样，布莱恩•弗利担心的是737客机在短期内的销量。“问题在于，在等待新机型上线之前，波音公司能否卖出足够数量的现有737机型，”弗利说。“第一架737 MAX要到2017年才开始服役，而从现在到2017年还有三年的时间。”

    阿布拉菲亚说，投资者如果想要衡量波音公司的实力，或探询飞机制造业的前景，明智的做法可能是退后一步，从更宏观的层面来观察这个行业。一个星期的利好消息，不管好到何种程度，都无法支撑波音公司一年的发展。而且，虽然过去几个月中，波音公司的股价一直在上涨，但未来的发展并不仅仅取决于订单储备、生产数量和劳工合同。

    “波音公司商用飞机的产量和订单量之所以高涨，很大程度上是因为有着令人难以置信的宏观有利条件：极低的利率和油价。这两者的水平都恰到好处——如果太高，航空公司就会挣不到钱；如果太低，会让老式飞机比新式飞机更有吸引力”，阿布拉菲亚说。“然而，对于波音公司最强大、最赚钱的飞机制造部门来说，还有一个根本性的问题。万一客观条件发生了变化怎么办？”（财富中文网）

    译者：刘进龙/朱毓芬/汪皓  

    It's in the medium and long term where Boeing may find itself facing serious headwinds. Just as Oppenheimer's Reiner and Lee are concerned with the 777's ability to continue selling until the 777X is delivered, Foley worries about 737 sales in the nearer term. "There's a question of whether they'll be able to sell enough of their existing 737s while waiting for the new iteration to come online," he says. "The first 737 MAX enters service in 2017, and there's three years between now and then."

    For investors looking to gauge the strength of Boeing and the larger aircraft manufacturing sector going forward, it might be wiser to take a step back from the industry and look at it through a wider lens, Aboulafia says. One week of good headlines, no matter how good, won't carry Boeing for an entire year. And bullish though he is on Boeing's past few months, the future isn't dictated solely by order backlogs, production numbers, and labor contracts.

    "You've got continued strong commercial jet numbers largely because you've got an almost impossibly good combination of events in the macro environment: very low interest rates and oil prices that are kind of in a sweet spot -- not to so high that airlines can't make money and not so low that older jets are more attractive than newer ones," he says. "But you've got a fundamental problem for Boeing's strongest and most profitable unit, which is: What if anything changes?"