Jetrader - September/October 2013 - 24

Substitute for the real deal; A350XWB only showed up on Friday.

Next please! A380 prepares for demo flight.

Handover ceremony of the first Superjet to Interjet.

Airbus’ Chief Operating Officer John Leahy and DORIC’s Chief Executive Officer
Mark Lapidus announce a MoU for the purchase of no less than 20 Airbus A380s.

the E190-E2 keeps the same size, and the
E195-E2 has grown three seat rows and will
accommodate up to 132 seats. Entry into
service is expected between 2018 (E190-E2)
and 2020 (E175-E2), leaving Embraer with
the challenge to sell a signiﬁcant number
of E1s in the interim years.
The other important new program ofﬁcially launched in Paris was the Boeing
787-10. Although only a “simple stretch”
of the 787-9, the -10 immediately attracted
102 commitments from five customers.
Boeing claims the 787-10 will be the
most efﬁcient jetliner in history thanks
to increased capacity versus the -9 but
a limited range of “only” 7,000 nm. With
scheduled entry into service in 2018, the
787-10 appears to be aimed at the market
segment of the A330-300, and it will be
interesting to see how well the high-tech
787-10 will do against the probably much
lower-priced Airbus product. While not yet
ofﬁcially launched, Boeing hinted strongly
that the new generation 777, the 777-8X
and the 777-9X, will be launched soon.
The battle between the industry leaders in
the twin-aisle arena will be ﬁerce with the
A350XWB lined up against the 787 and 777X.

Overall, the Paris Air Show was a great
event in terms of business volume. It is not
totally clear what the real order volume was,
as many commitments announced during the
show where either letters of intent, options,
conﬁrmations of orders placed before the air
show; or, as some say, just wishful thinking. Airbus and Boeing kept each other in
balance with reportedly 466 commitments
of some kind for Airbus ($69  billion in
fairy-tale list prices) and 442 for Boeing
($66 billion in fantasy-land list prices).
What may be more relevant is comparing
the 2013 order intake total including Le
Bourget (six months to June 30) with the
2012 ﬁgure including Farnborough (seven
months to July 31). While in 2012, the OEMs
had noted 1,163 sales for western-build jets,
the total 2013 sales after Le Bourget was
1,880! Clearly the order boom continues as
airlines are preparing for future growth or
want to replace current generation planes
by more efﬁcient next-generation aircraft.
Lessors are once more placing speculative
orders, anticipating ample demand for the
new jets. Finance constraints obviously are
not a concern anymore, as money is cheap
and plentiful.

24 The ofﬁcial publication of the International Society of Transport Aircraft Trading

Filling the Order Books
In terms of individual orders, there
were a few highlights. On the ﬁrst day
of the show, DORIC Lease Corp. signed a
memorandum of understanding (MoU) for
the purchase of no less than 20 Airbus
A380s. It is hoped that this lease product
will make the A380 more accessible to
(new) airlines. During the press conference, Airbus’ Chief Operating Ofﬁcer John
Leahy and DORIC’s Chief Executive Ofﬁcer
Mark Lapidus gave the impression that
the marketing of the A380s will be done
in close cooperation between Airbus and
DORIC and that DORIC would even enjoy
a kind of exclusivity to lease A380s. For
Airbus, the order comes at a convenient
time as the sales team had reportedly
committed itself to 25 additional A380
sales in 2013. Asked by one of the journalists, it was indicated that Airbus had
committed to pre-agreed reconﬁguration
costs should any of the planes be transferred to another operator and by doing
so, taking a major uncertainty out of
the equation.
Also on Monday, ILFC ordered 50 Airbus
A320neos, while its competitor GECAS
Jetrader - September/October 2013

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