FARNBOROUGH, England, 22 July 2010.Passenger aircraft sales continued Wednesday into Thursday morning at the Farnborough International Airshow in Farnborough, England, although at a slower pace than the previous two days. By rough count, 121 firm sales and options for passenger jetliners and turboprops happened at Farnborough Wednesday through Thursday morning, bringing total sales and options announced at the show to about 723.
By rough count, firm passenger aircraft sales and options announced at Farnborough totaled 212 Monday, 392 on Tuesday, and 121 on Wednesday into Thursday morning. Sales of widebody passenger jetliners at Farnborough through Thursday have totaled about 78.
Highlights of Farnborough passenger aircraft sales Wednesday into Thursday included an order from Qatar Airways for two Boeing 777-200 LR widebody aircraft, as well as an agreement between Qatar Airways and Boeing to accelerate deliveries of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Thai Airways, meanwhile, ordered seven Airbus A330 widebody passenger jetliners.
American Airlines says it has exercised options for 35 Boeing 737-800 narrow-body jet aircraft to be delivered in 2011 and 2012. Another narrow-body jetliner order came from Russian firm Ilyushin Finance for 20 aircraft -- 10 orders and 10 options -- for the Antonov An-158 twin-engine small jetliner.
Australian carrier Qantas placed an order with Canadian jet manufacturer Bombardier for seven Q400 twin-engine turboprop passenger aircraft to be operated by its QantasLink subsidiary. Another twin-engine turboprop sale involved Malaysian firm Crecom Burj Resources as the company formalized a $5 billion deal for 50 Russian-made Irkut MC-21 twin-engine passenger turboprops.
