Asian and low-cost airlines defied worries about the global recession and placed dozens of orders with Airbus at the Paris Air Show, in sharp contrast to rival Boeing, which reported no new sales.
Planemakers at the world’s biggest air show are trying to coax airlines and governments to open their pocketbooks and buy more aircraft despite plunging passenger loads and revenues.
Airbus CEO Tom Enders declared that Tuesday’s sunny skies — after pelting rain on Monday’s opening day — boded well for business.
PHOTO: BLOOMBERG NEWS
Airbus announced two firm orders from Vietnam Airlines and the Philippines low-cost airline Cebu Pacific worth US$1.8 billion on Tuesday. Vietnam Airlines ordered 16 Airbus A321 single-aisle jets worth US$1.4 billion and pledged to buy two more A350-XWB planes.
The airline made a deposit and signed a memorandum of understanding for the two A350 planes, which falls short of a firm sale and means Airbus does not count the order in its overall tally.
Cebu Pacific made a firm order for five single-aisle A320s worth a total of US$385 million at list prices. Airlines often negotiate substantial discounts to catalog prices, particularly in tough economic times.
Kuala Lumpur low-cost airline Air Asia ordered 10 A350-900 jets and placed options for five more. The list price for the 10 jets would be US$2.4 billion.
Boeing’s vice president for international corporate communications, Charlie Miller, shrugged off the Airbus announcements.
“Airbus and Boeing approach air shows in a different way. Boeing doesn’t save up orders to announce at air shows. That has been our policy for years. Our policy is to announce orders as soon as they are firm,” he said.
Boeing has sought to concentrate on its military programs. The head of its air refueling tanker programs expressed confidence in the US jet manufacturer’s chances to win the rematch with Airbus’ parent EADS for a multibillion-dollar contract with the US Air Force.
Boeing vice president Dave Bowman said his team was “pumped and ready to rock” when the Air Force issues its request for offers in the coming weeks.
Both rivals sought to minimize expectations this year amid worries about credit markets, the global economy and the unexplained crash of Air France Flight 447.
“This is not the time to expect huge orders, but there are still orders coming in because the situation is different from region to region” and company to company, Enders told a news conference. “What counts for our numbers, our financial health, is not orders but turning our backlog into delivery.”
He also sought to reassure its thousands of workers amid cutbacks across the aviation industry.
“We are very much interested in keeping stable the most important asset we have in our company ... our skilled workforce,” he said.
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so
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