Airbus, Boeing face off at Paris Air Show
AFP, Paris
The world's two giant planemakers will be facing off at the Paris Air Show opening Monday, with US champion Boeing determined to wrest back the world title won from it by European upstart Airbus. For the past two years Airbus, 80 percent owned by the Franco-German European Aeronautic and Defence Company and 20 percent by Britain's BAE Systems, has outsold Boeing. But even before the rivals arrive in Paris for the show, Airbus is showing signs of faltering. It announced recently that deliveries of its superjumbo A380 would be delayed by up to six months. Then it put off for several months the launch of its A350, the defensive competitor to Boeing's 787 Dreamliner which is already notching up a healthy list of orders. And Washington is playing hardball over the A350's financing, taking a complaint to the World Trade Organisation over what it claims are illegal state subsidies. The European Union filed a competing complaint on Airbus's behalf, and the WTO is to begin looking at them Monday.
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