Paris Air Show Day 4 brought additional commitments from Airbus and Boeing, including an “unannounced major customer” who ordered 125 737 MAX 8 and optioned 50 more. Airbus announced 2 new Iranian customers, Zagros Airlines for 8 A330neos and 20 A320neos, and Iran Airtour for 45 A320neos. We’ve summarized all of the orders in the table below:
In the overall results, net of swaps and previously undisclosed orders, the net new firm orders were quite low, with only 350 firm orders, which broke down as follows:
Boeing garnered 51.1% of the firm orders, followed by Airbus with 41.1%.
The major news of the show was the launch of the 737 MAX10, which garnered 326 total commitments. But of that total, 179 were conversions from previous MAX orders, netting a total of 147 firm orders and LOIs, of which 43 aircraft were firm orders, or 13.2% of the total announcements. While we expect the additional 104 commitments to be converted, the net new total will be less than half of the total orders announced.
Clearly, Boeing previously had the wrong airplane, and the MAX10 conversions prove that Boeing has produced a better solution that airlines prefer to the MAX9, which did not stack up well against the A321neo. But will the MAX10 cause the demise of the MAX9?
Overall, the show garnered about as many commitments as Paris 2015, and fewer than Paris 2013, and Paris 2011. LOIs and options exceeded expectations, but firm orders were in the ballpark we expected them to be at, lower than in previous years.
Stay tuned for more analysis about what this means when our team returns from Paris this week.
