25 June, 2017
In a sign of their more modest expectations, some companies have cut back on staffing and catering at this year's Paris Air Show and made less space available for the media.
Growth is expected to be strongest in the hotly contested single-aisle segment, where Boeing offers the 737 family of planes and Airbus the A320 variants.
"Many airports are running out of capacity and for those airports this is a ideal aircraft", said Indian-based budget airline SpiceJet's chairman, Ajay Singh, as his firm signed a provisional contract to acquire 40 MAX 10s.
He said the Max series is oversold through 2020, and capacity is finite for the model favored by budget carriers.
Airbus signed deals with AirAsia, and privately-owned Iranian carriers Zagros Airlines and Iran Airtour.
The one element missing in Paris for Boeing was that it didn't add any new 777X orders.
A new airliner is worth many hundreds of billions of dollars to the global economy. Yes, it is. Are we conceding that Boeing sold a few more airplanes than we did? The agreement also includes purchase rights for an additional 50 airplanes.
In addition, 20 of SpiceJet's 40 orders are conversions from an older 737 model, and TUI Group converted 18 prior orders into Max 10 orders.
Finally, Boeing is expected to reveal more details this morning about the "new midsize airplane" (NMA) the company is working on.
Once again, the bulk of Wednesday's contracts involved single-aisle airplanes, and again Boeing's 737 Max 10 drew headlines, leading with a 10-aircraft MOU with Xiamen Airlines worth $1.2 billion.
Airbus and Boeing underscored the continued demand strength, principally in the large single-aisle plane sector, with several billion dollars of deals on Tuesday, the second day of the Paris Air Show.
Boeing also announced an order for three Next-Generation 737-800 airplanes from Tassili Airlines, valued at over $294 million at list prices.
According to Bloomberg, Boeing has focussed on the 737 due to the lack of demand for jumbo passenger jets (such as its famous 747), and have even gone so far as to drop the four-engine plane category from its annual forecast. "They're clearly going to come after us on price".
That included 147 new orders and commitments for the 737 MAX 10, plus 214 conversions to the MAX 10 from other models to support the launch of the new plane.
Boeing's overall tally is higher partly because it counts aircraft with 90 seats or more, whereas Airbus starts at 100. "We look forward to delivering this first 737 MAX to Mauritania later this year".
