At Paris, Airbus surpasses Boeing in firm airplane orders

The opening day of the Paris Air Show took on a familiar theme Monday, with order-related announcements between rivals Airbus and Boeing consuming the headlines at the international civil and military aircraft event.

The fortunes of both commercial airplane giants are important to Wichita, where Airbus operates a engineering center and Boeing accounts for a significant amount of manufacturing work for numerous area suppliers, including Spirit AeroSystems. Spirit, in addition to building large parts of all Boeing airplanes, also makes parts for Airbus’ A320, A350XWB and A380 airliners.

And on day one of the 51st annual show at Le Bourget Airport outside Paris, Airbus was the clear victor in terms of total firm aircraft orders.

The Toulouse, France-based planemaker recorded 94 firm orders for its A320 family jetliners, 20 for its A330-300 aircraft and one for an A350-900. More than half of its firm orders came from GE Capital Aviation Services, which leases and finances airliners and ordered 60 A320neo — new engine option — airplanes.

“As is usual for Airshows many eyes were on the order tallys, and Airbus handily beat Boeing on that front,” RBC Europe analyst Robert Stallard wrote in a note to investors Monday afternoon.

Boeing racked up 14 firm orders from Qatar Airways for its 777 derivatives, including 10 777-8xs and four 777 Freighters. At list prices, the deal is valued at $4.8 billion, Boeing said.

Boeing also announced commitments from EVA Airways for five 777 Freighters and from Garuda Indonesia, which it said intends to purchase 30 787-9 Dreamliners and up to 30 737 MAX 8 airplanes.

Airbus also used the show to release its updated Global Market Forecast, in which it said it expects worldwide demand for 32,600 commercial and freighter aircraft in the next two decades, at a value of $4.9 trillion. Those projections, both in total number of jets and value, were lower than Boeing’s updated Current Market Outlook, which was released last week.

Airbus said it expects single-aisle jets to account for about 70 percent, or about 23,000 jets, of the demand. Twin-aisle aircraft would account for about 9,600, or 30 percent, of demand for passenger jets and freighters, Airbus said.

Boeing last week projected worldwide demand for 38,050 commercial aircraft valued at $5.6 trillion in its updated, 20-year forecast. Boeing included in its total 2,490 regional jets while Airbus noted in its forecast Monday that its projections don’t include aircraft with fewer than 100 seats, which is the category regional jets fill.

Still, even excluding the regional jets, Boeing’s 20-year new aircraft forecast is higher by 2,960 airplanes.

Boeing projected demand for 26,730 single-aisle airliners and 8,830 twin-aisle jets by 2034.

Both Airbus’ and Boeing’s forecasts said that the Asia-Pacific region would lead the world’s airline traffic growth.

In other announcements of local interest made Monday the show, Textron Inc.’s Beechcraft Defense Co. said it recently delivered four Beechcraft T-6D military aircraft to the U.S. Army, which the Army will use in a variety of training and mission-support activities. The T-6D is manufactured at Textron Aviation’s East Campus at Central and Webb.

And, Learjet’s Canadian parent Bombardier said the launch customer for its CSeries airliner, SWISS airlines, converted 10 of its 30 firm orders for CS100 aircraft to the larger CS300 aircraft. Bombardier also said it signed signed a firm order with WestJet Encore for five Q400 turboprops in a deal valued at $200 million.

This story was originally published June 15, 2015 at 9:57 AM with the headline "At Paris, Airbus surpasses Boeing in firm airplane orders."