Airbus' Big Paris Curtain-Raiser

For über aircraft salesman John Leahy, pitching Airbus jets to potential buyers over the past two years hasn't been a picnic. But on the first day of the 47th International Paris Air Show, the European jetmaker's legendarily aggressive sales chief was back in his element.

Inside Airbus' prefabricated chalet at Le Bourget Airport near Paris, Leahy giddily delivered a string of major airplane orders that, in a matter of four hours, resurrected Europe's fallen industrial hero. The American-born executive rolled out sales announcements one after another, barely giving the throng of international journalists enough time to down their fifth cup of espresso or digest a second helping of tasty veal chunks smothered in sumptuous brown sauce.

Leahy's morning and afternoon shows led to a mega-haul for the Toulouse-based airplane maker: some $42.6 billion in contracts, including big deals from Qatar Airways, US Airways (LCC), and a Middle Eastern leasing company for the new Airbus A350 XWB, a fuel-efficient midsize plane that aims to challenge Boeing's (BA) popular 787 Dreamliner.
Putting the Past Behind It

Emboldened once again, Leahy went on to make one of his famously audacious predictions: that Airbus will secure more than 280 orders during the weeklong show. That was the number of firm orders and pledges the company won two years ago at Le Bourget, when it announced orders totaling $33.5 billion, compared with $15 billion for Boeing. "I would expect to exceed that this year," Leahy said. "By how much? Why don't we wait until Friday to see?"

It has been a long and agonizing two years for Airbus since the last Paris air show, when it sat undisputedly atop the aviation world. The embarrassing story of how the company squandered its pole position since then is all too well known: It bet big on the 555-seat A380 superjumbo, only to see the plane end up being two years late. The production problems and delays have forced parent European Aeronautic Defence & Space to cut its projected profits by $6.4 billion through 2010.

Airbus still remains the world's No. 1 airplane producer, having delivered 430 planes last year compared with Boeing's 398. But in 2006, Boeing won the order contest for the first time in five years, thanks to surging demand for the Dreamliner. Armed with a huge $188 billion backlog in 2007, up from $124 billion in 2005, it expects to eclipse Airbus on deliveries in the near future.
Boeing Begins Comfortably Ahead

Still, the gains in new business for Airbus underscores the company's fighting spirit and the robustness of the commercial aircraft market. Airlines prefer to have two relatively strong airplane manufacturers because the rivalry spurs innovation and keeps prices down. After these past two years, Europe's aerospace champion had to prove it could recover from its missteps. "Airbus has avoided defeat," says Richard Aboulafia, veteran aerospace analyst for the Teal Group, a Fairfax (Va.)-based consulting company. "This could have been a devastating week if they hadn't shown some firmness to the order numbers."
Source : http://www.businessweek.com