Boeing order bonanza leaves Airbus within the dust

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — American aerospace giant Boeing eclipsed its French rival Airbus after 4 days of deals on the 2023 Dubai Airshow, underlining strong demand for wide-body jets particularly and making a robust comeback after several years of underperformance following major safety scandals.

Boeing chalked up 295 aircraft orders compared to Airbus’s 86 orders by day 4 of the Middle East’s largest aviation event, in response to company updates and tallies from industry experts. The French manufacturer grappled with publicly aired concerns over the fee and performance of its Rolls-Royce engines.

Boeing kicked off the primary day of the show with an enormous order for 95 of its 777 wide-body jets from Dubai’s flagship carrier Emirates Airline at list prices of $52 billion, followed by an $11 billion order from Emirates subsidiary and low-cost carrier FlyDubai for 30 of its first-ever-ordered 787 Boeing Dreamliners.

The robust appetite for wide-body jets highlighted each Dubai’s optimistic outlook for long-haul air travel in addition to the importance of the Middle East market to the aircraft model’s demand. The purchases showed Dubai flexing its muscles as a number one East-West transit hub, looking keen to defend and increase its market share amid rising competition or expansion from carriers in Turkey, India and Saudi Arabia.

The Emirates order was made up of 55 additional Boeing 777-9s and 35 of its 777-8s, bringing the airline’s total orders for the 777X wide-body jets to 205 units. Emirates also updated its order of Boeing 787 Dreamliners from 30 to 35.

The numerous proportion of wide-body jets on the Dubai show “reflects the surge in international travel in 2023; and it favors BA (Boeing), which is stronger than Airbus in widebodies and has snared ~50% of the Dubai dollar order value,” analysts at TD Cowen wrote in a note on Wednesday.

Turkish-German airline SunExpress made the second-largest Boeing order after Emirates, comprised of 56 of its narrow-body 737-8s and 34 737-10s. Ethiopian Airlines followed with as much as 41 737-8s and 26 787-9s, then FlyDubai with 30 787-9s, Kazakhstan’s SCAT Airlines with seven 737-8s, and Royal Jordanian and Royal Air Maroc with orders of 4 and two 787-9s, respectively.

Airbus, which had firmly dominated in the previous few Dubai shows, trailed behind with 86 aircraft orders, the biggest from Air Baltic which bought 30 narrow-body A220-300s with an option for an extra 20. Ethiopian Airlines ordered 11 of Airbus’s widebody A350-900s, while EgyptAir purchased 10 of the identical jet.

Emirates on Thursday ordered 15 of the French plane maker’s A350-900 jets, a purchase order the airline said is price $6 billion — a much smaller order than previously anticipated, after the carrier’s president Tim Clark openly criticized the fee and maintenance required for the Rolls-Royce engines on the Airbus A350.

“If the engine was doing what we wish it to do … then it could re-enter the combo of assessment for our fleet plan,” Clark told journalists on the airshow. He said that Emirates would have ordered 35-50 of the jets otherwise.

In an announcement replying to the comments, Rolls-Royce said that the A350-900’s XWB-84 engine “is the very best engine on the market whenever you take a look at efficiency, durability and reliability.” 

Industry watchers also anticipated a blockbuster sale for Airbus of 355 planes to Turkish Airlines. But as a substitute of a signing, the 2 said they reached an “agreement in principle for a major business aircraft order,” with the Turkish flag carrier saying in an Istanbul stock exchange filing that its “discussions with Airbus” are “ongoing.”

Boeing’s orders are already nearly thrice as high as its total orders from the Dubai Airshow in 2021, and approaching the 356 orders in clinched on the 2023 Paris Airshow in June. Airbus’s order figure of 86 aircraft is meanwhile significantly behind its 2023 Paris Airshow haul of 846 orders and 2021 Dubai Airshow total of 408.