Boeing-Airbus duopoly tightens order grip over upstarts

Boeing Co and Airbus SAS reasserted their dominance at the aviation industry's largest trade expo as challengers including Bombardier Inc. failed to win any orders for single-aisle jets, the workhorses of global airline fleets.

The two biggest planemakers ran neck and neck after the first three days of the Paris Air Show, with $55.8 billion of commitments for Boeing to Airbus's $55.6 billion. Airbus added sales today to United Airlines and Spirit Airlines Inc.

Bombardier's CSeries and models from challengers such as Commercial Aircraft Corp of China and Russia's Irkut Corp are being shut out of a single-aisle market projected at almost 25,000 planes in the next two decades. Brazil's Embraer SA, a Bombardier rival in regional jets, has avoided a confrontation with the Boeing-Airbus narrow-body duopoly and won $16 billion of business this week for upgraded small planes. (FIGHT FOR SKY SUPREMACY)

"It's one thing to have yet another air show where the CSeries doesn't do anything," said Richard Aboulafia, vice president of Fairfax, Virginia-based consultant Teal Group. "It's another thing to have their biggest direct competitor do more in an afternoon than they've done in five years."

New engines
Embraer garnered 365 orders and options for its revamped regional jets, led by SkyWest Inc and International Lease Finance Corp. The planes will have new engines, and the largest will stretch to accommodate 132 people.

Bombardier introduced the CSeries in 2008 as it sought to move up from its signature regional aircraft. China's state-owned Comac and Irkut had national backing in taking on Chicago-based Boeing and Toulouse, France-based Airbus. Commercial success has yet to arrive.

The CSeries, designed to carry as many as 160 people and compete with the smallest Boeing and Airbus offerings, was shunned by buyers this week even with its first flight scheduled to take place within days.

"It is an entirely new plane. I can understand that the airlines are waiting," said Egon Behle, CEO at Germany's MTU Aero Engines AG, a partner with United Technologies Corp's Pratt & Whitney on the CSeries' power plant. "Bombardier does not have a track record like Embraer, Airbus and Boeing."

Industry workhorse
Bombardier has booked 388 CSeries orders and options, according to the company.

That compares with 317 orders for Boeing's upgraded 737 Max this year through May and 391 for the new Airbus A320neo in 2013 up until the beginning of the air show, the companies said.

Those are the newest and most advanced narrow-bodies from Boeing and Airbus, part of a class of planes typically flown on shorter routes with multiple takeoffs and landings daily.