The aviation industry's first major meeting of the year concluded business Friday with only a few deals and no major sales by aerospace giants Airbus and Boeing, reflecting unease about the global economic outlook.
The Singapore Airshow reported that USD$9 billion worth of deals were signed during five days of trade, USD$4 billion short of the previous airshow in the city-state in 2008.
"It was disappointing, no commercial (aircraft) deals, everything was on MROs (maintenance, repair and overhaul). People even thought last year's Dubai Airshow was disappointing," said aviation analyst Shashank Nigam, who writes a blog on the industry.
In 2009, Dubai wrapped up USD$14 billion worth of deals which included sales of two Airbus A380s, the world's most expensive aircraft.
The biggest commercial deal at the Singapore Airshow this year was a USD$3.5 billion deal between International Aero Engines and Jetstar Airways, of which USD$1.5 billion was for V2500 engines and USD$2 billion for a long-term service agreement.
The International Aero Engines consortium groups Pratt & Whitney together with Rolls-Royce, MTU Aero Engines of Germany and a trio of Japanese heavy engineering companies.
European aircraft maker Airbus said Thursday that it had signed a memorandum of understanding to sell six Airbus A330-200 aircraft to Hong Kong Airlines, valued at USD$1.15 billion at list price.
Organizers, however, put a brave face on the slow sales. "The commercial guys are doing good business. I was thinking that the defense side would do well, but the commercial boys are snapping up the business," Jimmy Lau, managing director for Singapore Airshow 2010, told reporters.
"The swing in the market is back and everybody is getting ready to fleet up again. Airline operators are looking to put back in service what they cut back the past year and a half or so. The growth in MRO is going to be there," Lau said.
About 70 percent of the deals struck during the airshow came from the commercial side and the rest from the defense side, Lau said.
The biggest defense sale was between India's air force and a state-owned firm, which was announced at the show.
The Indian Air Force ordered 750 Akash surface-to-air missiles from the Bangalore-based defense enterprise Bharat Electronics at an estimated cost of INR40 billion Indian rupees (USD$860 million), the organizers said.
The United States Air Force also awarded Raytheon a USD$170 million contract to produce infrared-guided air-to-surface missiles for the United Arab Emirates, the organizer said.
The four-day trade show was jolted by the scrapping of a flight display Thursday when a South Korean pilot steered his fighter jet too close to spectators, having "infringed the safety boundaries," witnesses and the show organizer said.
Before the global economic downturn, the aviation industry had grown used to the ritual of an orders race between Boeing and Airbus at air shows, with customers spending USD$62 billion in 2008 before the crisis kicked in.
That may be changing.
"This is a quiet airshow. The world is getting too many airshows," Airbus sales chief John Leahy said this week.
"I think we need to get together as an industry and maybe limit the number of airshows."
