Boeing and Airbus help to lift economic gloom

Airbus announced its first big deal of the year and Boeing saw better times ahead, despite the dire climate for the aviation industry at the opening of the Paris Air Show yesterday.

"It feels to me that we may have reached the bottom," Scott Carson, Head of Commercial Airline Business at US jetmaker Boeing, said at the show.

"There is no certainty. But it does feel to us that there are reasons to hope that the recovery will begin next year," he added.

Boeing's rival Airbus also sounded an upbeat tone, announcing an order from Qatar Airways for 24 medium-haul A320 airliners.

"Qatar Airways has signed a firm contract for 24 Airbus A320," it said.

Italian aerospace giant Finmeccanica's Chief Executive Pier Francesco Guarguaglini also said he saw "signs of recovery" in economic activity and added: "If the crisis does not last, the negative impact will be limited". The Paris Air Show opened in driving rain and a downbeat mood after a collapse in air travel owing to the global economic crisis and concern about safety issues after the crash of an Air France Airbus in the Atlantic this month.

The week-long show at Le Bourget near Paris celebrates its 100th anniversary this year. Organisers said there were a record 2,000 exhibitors despite the economic slump and they forecast that visitor numbers would stay the same.

"This... air show is overshadowed by two events," Airbus' Head Thomas Enders said, recalling the still unexplained June 1 loss over the Atlantic of an Air France Airbus A330 and the deep financial crisis.

The International Air Transport Association says the airline industry could lose $9 billion (Dh33bn) in 2009 because of falling demand and rising oil prices – almost double an estimate made three months ago.

Louis Gallois, Head of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company, Airbus' parent company, said: "This will not be an air show of orders."

Enders said that while Airbus still hoped to receive about 300 orders this year the final tally "could be considerably lower".

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