Wednesday, Paris Air Show Day 3, had a slowdown in order quantity, as is normally the case. By Thursday, most of the activity will finish as the show moves from the industry to public days.
All in all, except for the exceptionally hot weather making the air conditioned chalets overcrowded, the show progressed about as expected, with the Boeing 737 MAX 10 being the biggest news.
Wednesday saw 73 aircraft commitments, as shown on the chart below. A number of the commitments today, and throughout the week, for the MAX 10 have been conversions of previous orders. That trend continued today with 35, or about half of the orders being previous commitments changed from one model to another.
Looking at gross commitments, including conversions, Boeing has a substantial lead in market share for the show, as shown in the chart below.
Boeing has garnered 336 commitments for the 737 MAX 10, but 199 of those have been conversions from previous MAX orders, netting 137 new orders. An unspecified portion of a Tibet Finance Leasing’s order for 20 MAX models could also be for the 10. So far, 9 airlines and 7 lessors have signed up for the aircraft in a good start for the new model.
But with more than half of the new announcements as conversions from existing aircraft, the question is whether the success of the MAX10 will mean the demise of the MAX9, which didn’t sell very well because it wasn’t what airlines wanted. The MAX10, while still not the equal of the A321, comes closer than its predecessor and may result in the death of the MAX9. Clearly Boeing did the right thing in launching the new model – but with the cannibalization of other models will it really make as big a difference as Boeing hoped? Time will tell.
Stay tuned for more news from Paris, and our analysis of what it all means next week.
