Billions of dollars are at stake as the world’s largest aircraft manufacturers, Boeing Co and Airbus SE, duel over orders this week at the Farnborough Air Show in Hampshire, UK — the biggest event of its kind this year.
Beyond the order avalanche, manufacturers, suppliers and airlines use the event to haggle over contracts and float ideas for new planes and ventures. Military officials and governments hammer out arms deals and announce defense initiatives.
Farnborough, which alternates with the Paris Air Show held every other year at the city’s Le Bourget Airport, is also a showcase for new technology and ideas, from flying taxis to space flight.
The US manufacturer got things going with a US$4.7 billion order for 14 Boeing 777 Freighters and purchase rights for an additional seven.
The new order is to double DHL’s global B777 fleet and help it curb emissions, the delivery service said.
Heading into the show, Airbus was closing in on orders totaling US$29 billion, based on list prices, from Taiwanese startup StarLux Airlines (星宇航空) and Malaysia’s AirAsia Group Bhd.
The US$23 billion AirAsia deal would give a boost to Airbus’ slow-selling A330neo wide-body, while adding to the order pile for the popular A320neo narrowbody family. AirAsia would become the biggest customer for the marquee jet.
StarLux, founded by former Eva Airways chairman Chang Kuo-wei (張國煒), is aiming to start long-haul service to North America by 2021.
Airbus is seeking to jump-start the order book for its newly acquired C Series small jetliner, now renamed the A220, which it sells in a joint venture with Canada’s Bombardier Aerospace.
Going into Farnborough, Airbus was trying to iron out the last hurdles to a 60-jet order from David Neeleman, founder of JetBlue Airways Corp, and a group of investors who are trying to start a new US low-cost airline.
The A220 program received an important vote of confidence from Air Lease Corp founder Steven Udvar-Hazy, who told reporters that the A220 is “a more attractive prospect” under Airbus.
“This has changed the whole landscape in terms of its credibility,” Udvar-Hazy said.
The largest manufacturer of jet engines, CFM International Inc, has a message for Airbus and Boeing executives who are mulling a boost in production of their narrow-body aircraft next decade: “not so fast.”
Airbus and Boeing are undergoing an unprecedented order boom for single-aisle aircraft driven by fuel-saving planes and growth in air travel, especially in Asia. That has put pressure on suppliers — especially engine manufacturers — who have fallen behind on orders.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day