Quiet Singapore Airshow ends with fewer deals

Singapore: The aviation industry's first major meeting of the year concluded business on Friday with only a few deals and no major sales by aerospace giants Boeing and Airbus, reflecting unease about the global economic outlook.
The Singapore Airshow reported that $9 billion worth of deals were signed during five days of trade, $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.
The biggest commercial deal at the Singapore Airshow this year was a $3.5 billion deal between International Aero Engines and Jetstar Airways, of which $1.5 billion was for V2500 engines and $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, a unit of EADS , said on Thursday that it had signed a memorandum of understanding to sell six Airbus A330-200 aircraft to Hong Kong Airlines, valued at $1.15 billion at list price.
The biggest defence 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 defence enterprise Bharat Electronics Ltd at an estimated cost of 40 billion Indian rupees ($860 million), the organisers said.
05/02/09 Harry Suhartono/Mariko Katsumura/Nopporn Wong-Anan/Reuters

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Categories: Foreign Feb 2010, Indian Aviation- In General Feb 2010, Singapore Airshow 2010