Paris Air Show update — day one
This year’s iteration of the Paris Air Show is underway at nearby Le Bourget, and we’ll try to summarize each day’s orders and announcements here on CargoFacts.net.
The 2011 Show was expected to feature impressive order announcements, particularly from Airbus. So far, there haven’t been any blockbusters, but Airbus is off to an impressive start, with 244 firm orders and commitments, virtually all of which were for the recently launched re-engined A320neo Family. India-based Go Air ordered 72 A320neos, SAS ordered 30, and lessor GECAS ordered 60. Add a commitment for 36 from Air Lease, and the total is 198. The larger A321neo received 30 orders from Cebu Pacific, while Air Lease firm ordered one old-style (i.e. non-neo) A321. So far Airbus has received just 15 orders for widebodies, with Saudi Arabian Airlines ordering 4 A330-300s and Air Lease ordering 11 A330s with variant to be specified later.
Boeing booked 52 orders on the first day with a much different narrowbody-to-widebody ratio. In fact, the only narrowbody order was from Air Lease, for 20 737-800s. Air Lease also signed commitments for 5 777-300ERs and 4 787-9s. Qatar Airways, which is expected to place several orders at the Show made its first move with a 6-unit 777-300ER order. If there was anything approaching “big news” at the Show today, it was Boeing’s announcement that it had booked 17 firm orders for the 747-8I from two unidentified customers (one order for 15 units, one order for 2). Boeing has done well with orders for the freighter variant of the 747-8 but had relatively few for the pax variant.
New narrowbody competitor Bombardier reported a 10-unit CSeries order from an unidentified customer.
There were also orders placed for regional jets and twin turboprops: Embraer announced 2 orders and 20 commitments for its 190 model — with Air Astana firm ordering 2 and Indonesian carrier Sriwijaya indicating formal interest in twenty. And finally, lessor GECAS placed a firm order for 15 ATR72-600 turboprop aircraft.
So, the grand total on Day One is 343 orders: 244 for Airbus, 52 for Boeing, 10 for Bombardier, 22 for Embraer and 15 for ATR.
