Story ID: 391
Paris Welcomes 51st Salon du Bourget
By: Guillaume Lecompte-Boinet
Caption: This year's Paris Air Show features about 2,400 exhibitors, up 100 from last year.
Word Count: 661

This year marks the 51st installment of the City of LIght's biennial celebration of all things aeronautical, the Paris Air Show. Open from June 19 to 25 at Paris-Le Bourget Airport, the show will be inaugurated by newly elected French President Emmanuel Macron. French aerospace industry group Groupement des Industries Françaises Aéronautiques et Spatiales (Gifas) expects this year’s show to host more than the 351,500 visitors that traveled from all over the world for the 2015 show. The 2017 salon is expecting approximately 2,400 exhibitors, up from 2015’s 2,303 exhibitors. While half of the exhibitors are foreign companies, the U.S. is the largest country to be represented, with more than 350 companies on the static displays, in chalets and exhibit halls.

One of the new events this year is the Paris Air Lab. The event will host almost 100 laboratories and academics, startups and chief technology officers from companies such as Airbus, Boeing, Dassault, Rolls-Royce, Safran and Thales. During keynote speeches and presentations, themes such as digitalization in the aerospace industry, aircraft of the future, Europe's CleanSky program, UAVs, airborne connectivity, SESAR/NextGen air traffic control programs and earth observation will be explored.

According to Eric Trappier, CEO of Dassault Aviation and president of Gifas, Paris is the number one airshow in the world in terms of the number of exhibitors, visitors and space available for the show to take place. Gifas claims that the Paris Air Show has 58 percent more exhibitors than the second-ranked Farnborough International airshow held every even year in the UK. Based on newly released research, Gifas also claims to host twice the amount of professional visitors and more than twice the number of chalets than the British airshow.

“For the first time, all the [available spaces] were booked eight months before the show, so [much] that we asked the big exhibitors to make some room for the ones who were booth-less,” said Emeric d’Arcimoles, commissaire général of the Paris Air Show. “We are happy to see the U.S. as one the most regular participants of the Paris Air Show.”

Gifas member d’Arcimoles also claimed that the Paris Air Show is “the least expensive air show in the world,” with a price per square meter of €355, much less than than that of the Farnborough, Dubai and Singapore shows. According to a Gifas survey, the number of unsatisfied exhibitors at the Paris Air Show fell to 6 percent in 2015 from 46 percent in 2007 . Among professional visitors surveyed, the dissatisfied number dropped to 2 percent in 2015 from 33 percent in 2007.

Lockheed Martin’s F-35A, which will be on display for the first time at Le Bourget, leads the U.S. aircraft contingent at the Paris Air Show. Another first-timer at the show will be the Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey. Boeing will display its new 737 Max 9, the latest version of the 737, and 787-10, the longer version of the Dreamliner. Meanwhile, Airbus will display its A350-1000, the stretched version of the A350 XWB, and also the new A321neo. While the Osprey will remain on the static display, the four Boeing and Airbus jets will fly during the show.

While Embraer's military transport KC-390 will be on static, its narrowbody E195-E2 will take part in the flying displays. The Japanese maritime patrol Kawasaki P1, a four-engine aircraft most recently seen at the Royal International Air Tattoo in 2015, will make its first international debut. Mitsubishi Aircraft will showcase its MRJ-90 but not during the flight demonstration,, while Honda will display its light jet, the HA-420 HondaJet. At the same time, Lockheed Martin is featuring the civil version of the C-130J Super Hercules, the LM-100J. Turkish Aerospace Industries will fly its trainer and ground attack Urkus, which achieved first flight in August 2013. Cirrus will also fly its Williams International FJ33-powered single-engine SF-50 Vision jet, which is the lowest-cost entry-level jet currently available.  

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