If you can imagine the Paris Air Show as a stock market then what it has enjoyed this week is a nothing less than a rally–and a very welcome one at that. The world’s aerospace industry arrived here at Le Bourget on Monday morning in a torrential downpour of rain that seemed to symbolize its torrid fortunes over the past year. It will go home over the weekend, slightly sun burned and basking in the warmth of an unexpectedly strong flurry of sales activity.
Until the worldwide financial crisis pulled the rug from beneath its feet last year, the industry had enjoyed a phenomenal wave of good fortune on the international airshow circuit over the past five or six years, with order tallies being counted in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Most observers predicted slim pickings here this week, but as the final trade day of Paris 2009 dawned this morning the bottom line looks to be better than expected.
