Story ID: GPparissorders06242017
Boeing Takes Order Crown at Paris Salon
By: Gregory Polek
Caption: Draws commitments for 571 airplanes worth $74.8 billion
Word Count: 360
Boeing outdueled its European rival in the traditional Paris Air Show order battle last week, collecting incremental orders and commitments for 571 airplanes worth $74.8 billion at list prices. Airbus’s total value of new orders/commitments totaled $39.7 billion, marking the first time since 2012 that Boeing announced more business than did Airbus at a major international air show.

Boeing’s highest-profile model at this year’s show—the newly launched 737 Max 10—drew 147 incremental orders and commitments out of the 361 tally that included conversions from smaller Max models. At the start of the show saying it expected to collect 10 customers for the Max 10, Boeing ended the week with 16.

Speaking at Boeing’s last press briefing of the show, Boeing Commercial Airplanes sales and marketing vice president Ihssane Mounir countered criticism from Airbus COO of customers John Leahy about the proportion of conversions in the Max 10 order total.

“You’ve heard a lot of chatter from the other side about our performance here this week,” said Mounir. “We’ve been very public telling you that we’re oversold on the 737 Max until 2022...But the [Max 10], we will make it available in 2020. So several customers wanted to get their hands on this variant sooner than when we have production capability because we are oversold. So we proceeded with conversions, and that’s the flexibility we provide our customers.”

For Airbus, it own line of new narrowbodies accounted for the bulk of its A320 family order and commitment total of 306 airplanes worth $33.8 billion. In the widebody segment, the company won firm orders worth $3.6 billion and MOUs for eight worth another $2.3 billion.

“Our commercial success this week at Paris extends our already diversified order backlog to a new industry record of over 6,800 aircraft, with 326 orders worth $40 billion,” reported Airbus COO for customers John Leahy.

High-profile announcements for Airbus included an MOU from Iran AirTours covering 45 A320neos and a firm order from GECAS for 100 of the narrobodies. Other customers included Air Lease (12 A321neos), Delta Air Lines (10 A321s), Wizzair (10 A321s), Ethiopian Airlines (10 A350-900s) and Hi Fly (2 A330-200s).