After the worst year in a decade for regional aircraft builders, it's looking more and more like a two-horse race. To nobody's surprise, final figures for regional airliner orders and deliveries last year confirm that 2002 was the industry's worst year in a decade. The picture on the order front is particularly bleak, with barely 100 aircraft sold (see table), while airlines cancelled about 200 orders, primarily as a result of the collapse of Fairchild Dormer. The scale of the downturn over the past two years is impressive― total regional jet orders in 2002 amounted to 10% of the 788 chalked up in 2000. Deliveries were also down, but the impact was less severe thanks to the large backlog of regional jets built up in previous years. Nonetheless, the backlog is eroding slowly but surely, sliding from 1,300 aircraft on 1 January 2002 to 850 units one year later. All the manufacturers have been hit and, with no recovery on the horizon, the coming months will be difficult.
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