This has been an eventful week at fltdata, with news of the farnborough airshow starting and aviation enthusiasts flocking in droves to Hampshire for the event - we've also recorded a peak in visistors to fltdata.com. WHich is why we'd like to take this opportunity to thank again all of our members for helping everyone in the industry stay connected.
On top of all that we'd like to announce our 500th member - Mr Charlie Pyles Owner of Air Pix Aviation Photography. We're privileged to have you here on fltdata and the whole community appreciates it too.
Getting on to our coverage of the farnborough airshow where we've seen some exciting innovations and great prospects for business amongst the leading names in the industry. After a dreadful recession its great to see companies finally taking off[pun intended]. According to this report from reuters Boeing was expecting significant orders owing to the farnborough airshow. The company flagged its new orders on the first day of the show from Dubai based Emirates Airlines and expects more orders in the week.
"Internally we've raised our forecast for the number of orders we would get this year twice," said Jim Albaugh, the chief executive of Boeing's Commercial Airplanes, told reporters. He said Boeing would announce a "significant number" of orders over the next couple of days. "This is going to be a good air show for us," Albaugh said. "This is going to be a good air show for Airbus as well." In additional to the Emirates order, Boeing said it took orders from the aircraft leasing arm of General Electric Co for 40 of the company's 737-800 planes with a list value of $3 billion. Later in the day, Boeing said it took an order from Norwegian Air for 15 737s. Airbus also won a large order from Air Lease Corp, recently set up by Steve Udvar-Hazy, the founder and former head of American International Group Inc unit ILFC. The company ordered 51 Airbus passenger jets from the A320 series. Airbus took an order for 60 planes from the GE unit. GE's entire order was worth about $8 billion.
Albaugh said he saw an "uneven" recovery in the global economy and the United States appeared to be lagging.
FIA has also seen the unveiling of sophisticated new weaponry such as the anti aircraft laser by the US Firm Raytheon. Exciting stuff with more in the pipeline.
Keep posted to fltdata for more updates on whats happening beyond the blue yonder :)
