US aerospace giant Boeing turned its nose up at the bid by rival European plane maker Airbus to make the Paris Air Show an orders battle, leaving a customer on a different continent to announce its first sale of the show week.
Japan Airlines (JAL) said in Tokyo that it had ordered three widebody B777-200ER aircraft worth $525 million as part of plans to replace its DC-10 fleet. The order was Boeing's first for large commercial airliners during the biannual event at Le Bourget, the world's biggest air show. "We don't make deals in one week. These deals take a lot of time," said Seddik Belyamani, Boeing's top commercial aircraft salesman. He called the policy of stacking up order announcements for air shows "fluff". Airbus, by contrast, used the event to grab headlines, announcing orders for 155 planes from four customers, including for 10 of its new A380 superjumbos. Those announcements took the Airbus order book for 2001 to 299 planes against 172 for Boeing. Aircraft manufacturers announced new orders or intended orders worth $11.8 billion at the air show, excluding the Boeing deal with JAL. Boeing also unveiled the latest model of its planned Sonic Cruiser at the show.