Boeing wins air show as Airbus gets boost from AirAsia

Boeing claimed victory Thursday after outselling rival Airbus at this week’s Farnborough Airshow, where the world’s largest planemakers repeated last year’s comparable haul of around 900 orders with the help of leasing industry demand. The world’s largest planemaker said it had won 528 orders and commitments at the event in southern England, while Airbus reported 431 new deals, or 371 excluding the recently acquired Bombardier CSeries, now rebranded A220. But the tally was overshadowed by some 400 deals where the names of the buyers were withheld - unusual at an event mainly designed to attract publicity, and prompting one delegate leaving Farnborough to quip that he had attended a “UFO show”. Airbus blamed the incognito wave on trade tensions that had made some firms nervous about appearing to side with the US or other economic powers amid heated trade rhetoric. “The fact that the world is waking up to see which tweet has hit which part of the world doesn’t really help,” Airbus sales chief Eric Schulz said, in an apparent reference to US President Donald Trump’s frequent use of Twitter. But the publicity-shy trend was also widely seen as evidence that both giants were anxious to boost their tallies. Planemakers in some cases accelerate semi-finished business or use shows as a deadline to get airlines to commit even if they are not ready to be named, people familiar with talks said.<br/>