Mid-summer in an odd-numbered year can only mean one thing: the Paris air show. The biennial event opened on Monday with the usual order flurry – Airbus A350-1000s for Riyadh Air, A220s for LOT Polish Airlines – but against the tragic backdrop of the fatal crash of an Air India 787 in Ahmedabad the Thursday before.
Unsurprisingly, this caused Boeing to pull back sharply from its show commitments: neither chief executive Kelly Ortberg nor Stephanie Pope, chief executive of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, travelled to Paris and the firm held no commercial briefings.
At present, although the flight-data recorders from the crash Dreamliner have been recovered, investigators have disclosed nothing about the possible causes of the crash.
Further geopolitical turmoil also came on the eve of the show as Israel launched extensive and apparently successful air strikes against Iran and triggered a further deterioration in the Middle East situation.
The ripples from the attack even reached Le Bourget as the organisers took the decision to erect black barricades around the stands of Israeli exhibitors, causing predictable outrage.
While the show’s second day was more subdued from an order perspective, it still included a preliminary deal from VietJet for up to 150 A321neos.
And despite its recent difficulties with the Pratt & Whitney PW1100G geared turbofan, Wizz Air picked the powerplant for the remaining 177 A320neo-family jets in its orderbook for which it had not made a choice of engine supplier.
Meanwhile, with the air display full of the usual fast-jet sound and fury, perhaps the biggest statement was made with the quietest voice as Beta Technologies put the all-electric CX300 through its paces.