Boeing wins Paris orders race with high demand for MAX aircraft

Boeing has won the annual competition to announce more orders at the Paris Air Show 2017, with high demand for its MAX jets outstripping orders for Rival Airbus.

Despite Airbus securing $40bn of new orders for 326 aircraft, huge deals including 100 737 MAX 10s for United Airlines and 125 737 MAX 8s for an unnamed customer put estimates at about 443 for deals Boeing as this article was published.

And Airbus conceded defeat in the race on Thursday 22nd June with Boeing orders still coming in.

“Is this a slower show than previous years? Yes, it is,” Reuters reports Airbus sales chief John Leahy as saying. “Are we conceding that Boeing sold a few more airplanes than we did? Yes.”

Airbus secured firm orders for 144 aircraft worth $18.5bn and MoUs for 182 aircraft worth $21.2bn. The A320 led the charge, with total deals for 306 aircraft worth $33.8 billion.

This included Viva Ai signing an MoU for 35 A320neo and 15 A320ceo, and Iran Airtour committing to 45 A320neo aircraft.

As a result of its success, Boeing upwardly revised its 10-year forecast to $2.6trn worth of new aircraft.

The manufacturing giant also revealed the first images of its new het, dibbed the 797 in the marketplace.

The new “middle market airplane” will be designed to serve congested airports on routes such as New York to Los Angeles, but also to be efficient enough to serve medium-range flights.

Boeing believes there could be a market for more than 4,000 such aircraft over 20 years starting around 2025.

Wesley Charnock

Wesley Charnock is Content Marketing Director for Aviation Week Network.