Aviation International News senior correspondent Ian Goold has been involved in aerospace since 1964 and in aviation media for more than 40 years. He enjoyed a 20-year career at Flight International magazine, where he was latterly air-transport editor before turning freelance in 1993. A winner of the European Regions Airline Association Hank McGonagle award for excellence in aerospace journalism and a Royal Aeronautical Society Aerospace Journalist of the Year global&nbsp;award, he has edited or contributed to aerospace and aviation magazines, special publications, and websites in Africa, Asia/Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America. Ian entered aerospace as an apprentice at the British Aircraft Corporation at Brooklands (Weybridge), where he worked on production and final assembly lines of the Vickers Super VC10, and BAC One-Eleven , and manufacture of Concorde major sub-assemblies. He subsequently graduated from the BAC Design Training School to work in the airframe structures drawing office (including design of international future projects, such as the Panavia Tornado multi-role combat aircraft) before joining Flight International in 1973. Apart from years of reading aircraft magazines and books, his first direct contact with aviation media had come during the early 1970s when he was involved at Brooklands with the Weybridge Man-powered Aircraft Group, which designed and built the tenth aircraft to fly under purely human power. As an aviation journalist, he has worked at more than&nbsp; 50 of the major biennial&nbsp;global and regional international aerospace industry shows at Le Bourget, Farnborough, Singapore, and Dubai (having missed attending only one "Farnborough" since 1960), plus innumerable NBAA, HAI, (U.S.) AOPA, and EBACE Conventions and ERA Assemblies. His favourite aircraft is the Hawker Hunter, of which – as a schoolboy – he heard hundreds make their first flights from Dunsfold, where also on September 24, 2013, he saw the penultimate landing of the VC10 (happily involving an example of which he had witnessed the maiden takeoff in 1970) a day before the last example made the design's final flight (unless, of course....).

Senior correspondent

Ian Goold

Airbus COO for customers John Leahy remains optimistic, even when faced with no increase in deliveries of new aircraft in 2010; one man’s zero growth is another’s stable marketplace. Airliner shipments have climbed steadily since 2002 as the European manufacturer’s order backlog (and that of U.S. competitor Boeing) soared on the back of the past economic cycle.&nbsp;

Historically, international passenger traffic trends have tracked those of global GDP–usually by a multiple of 1.5, with peaks 50 percent higher and troughs 50 percent lower than the economic trend. In turn, manufacturers have sought to tie production rates to order-backlog volumes, which theoretically meant they could moderate the amount of future business. For example, Airbus maintained a conservative 5:1 ratio between outstanding orders and current deliveries during 1990 to 2004, while Boeing's 3.3 ratio ensured a 40-month production backlog.&nbsp;

The consequent rollercoaster ride as orders and deliveries chased GDP has proved all too predictable–until recently, that is. Now, Leahy reports that change has been under way, as first Airbus and then Boeing have disengaged the two elements. The move escaped some forecasters, who mistakenly predicted 2009 shipments would fall dramatically, echoing previous cyclic trends. Of any doomsayers foreseeing a delayed downturn this year or next, Leahy said simply, “They’re still not right.”

Just as (from mid-2008 to the end of last year) passenger traffic essentially matched global GDP trends, thereby losing the established 1.5 multiple, recent aircraft delivery volumes have lost their link to order backlogs. The past five years have seen more moderate production trends, which will continue as the overbooking that accompanied airlines' insatiable–and unsustainable–demand gets shaken out through cancellations or deferrals. “[From] 2005 onwards, deliveries have not increased with orders,” said Leahy. “The current ‘cycle’&nbsp;will be flat.”

Manufacturers Unhitch Delivery Wagon from Order Book Horse

Airbus COO for customers John Leahy remains optimistic, even when faced with no increase in deliveries of new aircraft in 2010; one man’s zero growth is an

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