LA BORGUET, France (Reuters) – Plane giants were preparing to squeeze the last drop out of a once raging torrent of airplane orders without the razzmatazz of recent years, as the aerospace industry headed to a belt-tightening Paris Airshow opening on Monday (June 19), looking for new sources of revenue.
The June 19-25 gathering takes place against the backdrop of surprisingly strong airline traffic driven by economic growth, but a steep drop in the appetite for new planes following robust demand for the latest fuel-efficient models in recent years.
Instead, many firms will talk up efforts to extract new revenues out of powerful data-crunching services, while the first Paris display of a U.S. stealth jet in decades, Lockeed Martin’s F-35, points to a defence recovery at the world’s largest air show.
The show also comes amid tensions in the Gulf over a transport and economic boycott of Qatar that is fuelling questions over the resilience of a major source of demand.
Dominating an otherwise thin slate of commercial orders will be a new version of Boeing’s most-sold airliner, the 737.
The 190-to-230-seat Boeing 737 MAX 10, designed to narrow a gap against European rival Airbus, will be launched on Monday. The U.S. planemaker said it had more than 240 orders and commitments from at least 10 customers for the new plane.
