© Airbus S.AS 2013
Airbus A350
BATTLE FOR THE SKIES Aero giants Airbus and Boeing fought again for sales – and media attention – at this year’s Paris air show. Murdo Morrison, editor of Flight International, reports.
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ike the Roman mob, there is nothing the media at the Paris air show enjoys more than an epic gladitorial contest, with a victor and a loser, bloodied in defeat. Europe’s Airbus certainly enjoys the role of triumphant combatant at the biggest biennial gathering of the global aerospace industry – the 50th edition was held over five days at the Le Bourget airfield near Paris in mid-June. In front of a home crowd, Airbus never misses an opportunity to upstage rival Boeing, gleefully updating its orders tally daily and using the event to debut its latest products. This year was no exception, with a flypast on the final day of the show of Airbus’s newest airliner, the A350, a week after the widebody’s maiden flight in Toulouse. There was even an emperor – in the form of President Hollande – in attendance to give it the thumbs up. The A350 – which will undergo a 2500h flight test programme ahead of planned entry into service next year – is Airbus’s belated answer to Sukhoi Su-35
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the all-composite Boeing 787 Dreamliner, the first 50 examples of which spent most of this year grounded following incidents with in-flight battery fires. Boeing, by contrast, always grumpily denies that there is an ‘orders race’. Customers may or may not choose to make public new airliner commitments during the week, it insists. It does not time its own announcements with Paris or any other show. However, the US manufacturer does seem to be slowly recognising the publicity potential of playing the media’s game. After boycotting flying displays for years, at last year’s Farnborough in July, it flew its 787 for the first time at an air show. The Dreamliner was again on display at Paris – in Qatar Airways colours – though not flying. This year, Boeing made the headlines again when Michael O’Leary, outspoken chief executive of Ryanair – Europe’s biggest low-cost airline and one of the US Bombardier CSeries
manufacturer’s best customers – broke a self-imposed ban on attending air shows (a hard-nosed businessman, he says they are full of ‘aerosexuals’). He turned up to ink a $3 billion order (at list prices) for 175 Boeing 737-800s. He also revealed that the Irish carrier was evaluating an order for at least 200 of the re-engined Max version of the 737, which it could announce by year-end. O’Leary is among the toughest negotiators in the business and, although Boeing will not be maxing profits from any deal with Ryanair, its business will be welcome: Ryanair, an all-737 operator, had flirted with Airbus’s rival A320neo and China’s under-development Comac C919. O’Leary admitted that one of the reasons he did not choose the A320neo (for new engine option) was the likely delay in receiving aircraft. The re-engined Airbus narrowbody – which will go into service in 2015, two years ahead of the Max – has been a victim of its success, he said.
