Paris Air Show starts with a final flight

The 45th Paris Air Show opened on Saturday with the fly-in of an Air France Concorde making its last flight after being withdrawn from service at the end of May. The landing was watched by French President Jacques Chirac who opened the show by handing over the aircraft to the Muse de l'Air located at Le Bourget.

The Show opened with a much reduced US presence, particularly of military officials and aircraft as a result of US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's frustration with the French stand over the war in Iraq. However although most of the CEOs of the larger US defence companies had said that they would not be coming, it was noticeable that the second tier of management was here to engage in the biennial aerospace market place. Vance Coffman head of Lockheed Martin will be here, Jim Albaugh, president of Boeing's Integrated Defence Systems will be hosting a press conference later in the week and Alan Mulally, president of Boeing Commercial Airplanes gave his thoughts on the state of the commercial aviation market at a briefing on Sunday.

So did Noel Forgeard Airbus president, who, despite categorising 2003 as the most difficult year for airlines and aircraft manufacturers, remained upbeat about the prospects for the future. "While we must be realistic about the market, we are optimistic about the future," hesaid. He hinted strongly that Airbus would have the lion's share of the civil aviation orders that would be announced at the show during the week ahead.

A badly kept secret is that Middle East airlines Emirates and Qatar Airways will announce large orders, mostly for Airbus, in the next two days. Emirates is tipped to up its A380 super jumbo order to about 45 aircraft, as well as adding A340-600 long haul aircraft to its fleet. An order of a similar number of long haul 777-300Ers is expected to go to Boeing. Qatar Airways has an all Airbus fleet at the moment, and although the airline has been talking to both manufacturers, the betting is on another win for Airbus.

On the military front Paris is tipped to be relatively quiet with most of the interest in helicopters rather than fast jets. Eurocopter, AgustaWestland and Sikorsky are all in the ring for competitions for the US Presidential helicopter fleet, the Canadian Navy maritime helicopter requirement and the Australian medium transport requirement, and charges of politics rather than performance being the deciding factor are already flying. The A400M comes to the first major show in five years with a production contract for first deliveries in 2009 signed, but there are still many who see the gestation period as fraught with difficulties.

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