AIRBUS SE The Paris-Le Bourget International Air Show, held every two years in alternation with Farnborough, England, will run until June 25 at the airport northeast of Paris for the first time in four years and the COVID-19 pandemic that led to the cancellation of the 2021 edition.
The 2023 edition is being held against a backdrop of strong demand for new aircraft from airlines, in response to the upturn in air traffic and the sector's goal of carbon neutrality by 2050.
India's IndiGo is on the verge of placing a record order for 500 A320 Family single-aisle aircraft with Airbus, as reported by Reuters in early June. For its part, Air India may also formalize an order for 470 aircraft from Airbus and Boeing at the Paris Air Show.
"Some 3,300 aircraft were simply not produced during the COVID years, which represents around 15% of the world's fleet", observes Andy Cronin, head of leasing company Avolon.
Some observers estimate that up to 2,000 orders could be placed at the Paris Air Show, but many of these will be for existing contracts, while some buyers, such as Turkish Airlines, have ruled out any quick decisions.
"If this happens, we're entering a 'bubble'," says Sash Tusa, analyst at Agency Partners.
AN UNREALISTIC CLIMATE TARGET?
Meeting a few days ago in Istanbul, Turkey, the world's airlines expressed their interest in buying aircraft up to ten years in advance, to make sure they don't fall behind the strong post-pandemic upturn in air traffic.
"It's a seller's market like we've rarely seen," said a senior industry source, adding that aircraft prices are on the rise.
However, the aeronautical sector may struggle to keep pace as the pandemic has profoundly disrupted global supply chains.
In the longer term, there are questions about the ability to reconcile air traffic growth with environmental objectives.
The Director General of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), Willie Walsh, assured that airlines were determined to achieve the goal of carbon neutrality by 2050, while acknowledging that this would be "very difficult".
For environmental campaigners, the target set is unrealistic due to the low use of so-called sustainable fuels (SAF) in aviation, and the only solution to achieving it lies in reducing global traffic.
President Emmanuel Macron, who on Friday announced a 200 million euro investment to develop SAF production, will be at the Paris Air Show on Monday.
DEFENSE SECTOR ON ALERT
While commercial aviation is grabbing the headlines, the defense sector is on high alert, with the Ukrainian conflict forcing the sector's highly fragmented European players to be more agile and hold more stock to meet urgent needs.
Government defense budgets have exploded since Russia invaded Ukraine last year, with Western countries providing military support to Kyiv while developing their own future military arsenal.
However, some experts believe it will be difficult to keep budgets high enough to replenish ammunition while developing a new generation of fighters, drones and precision weapons.
"Even with all the money in the US budget, it's simply not possible to do everything," says Justin Bronk, an expert at the Royal United Services Institute.
"European nations all operate on a much smaller scale, with fewer fleets, and therefore when it comes to making hard choices and trade-offs, these are much more binary." (Reported by Tim Hepher, Valerie Insinna, Joanna Plucinska, Allison Lampert; Blandine Hénault for the French version)
