COMMERCIAL AVIATION Boeing to discontinue 757 passenger planes next year

This reflects the industry's transformation since the 2001 terrorist attacks.
RENTON, Wash. (AP) -- As the Boeing Co. expanded its best-selling 737 passenger airplane into a bigger jet that could fly farther, the role of the larger and pricier 757 slowly began to fade.
Orders dried up, and many began writing the 21-year-old jet's obituary. So it came as little surprise to many Thursday when Boeing said it will stop building the 757 late next year, after delivering more than 1,000 of the jets.
"It's been thought for a couple years now that the 757 program could be shut down due to lack of new orders," said Peter Jacobs, an analyst with Ragen MacKenzie in Seattle. "It was just a matter of whether it was next year or three years from now."
The announcement came hours after Continental Airlines said it was seeking to convert six orders for the jet to less-expensive 737-800 jetliners, a trend that has plagued the 757 in the commercial aviation downturn of the past two years.
"Clearly the 757 has been a tremendous airplane and has served the airlines of the world very well," said Boeing Commercial Airplanes chief executive Alan Mulally.
But airlines have been increasingly turning to the newer 737 models, whose size and range now rival the 757 -- for roughly $20 million a plane less. The price of a 757 ranged from $73 million to $90 million.
Aviation industry
Mulally said the 757 -- popular for its fuel-efficiency and versatility in handling everything from short runways to high-altitude airports -- had come to its end.
The end of the once highly popular 757 reflects just how significantly the commercial aviation industry has been transformed since the 2001 terrorist attacks.
The 757's traditional buyers -- the biggest U.S. airlines -- have been struggling to stay in business while low-cost carriers, who fly 737s and similar smaller planes, have been more adeptly weathering the downturn.
Existing planes weren't the only threat to the 757. Boeing's proposed new 7E7 jet, if built, has been touted as an eventual replacement for the 757 and the wide-body 767, making some airlines less willing to buy a jet on its way out.
Boeing will take a pretax charge of $184 million, or 14 cents per share, principally related to termination and shutdown costs.
The single-aisle, twin-engine 757 is built in this south Seattle suburb. Boeing builds two versions of the jet, the 200-passenger 757-200 and the 240-passenger 757-300, along with a freighter model. The airplane first flew in February 1982 and entered service with Eastern Airlines on Jan. 1, 1983.
Boeing did not immediately say what effect the production halt might have on employment but said it hopes to accommodate workers by shifting them to other lines. Several hundred people work on the 757 program.