Airbus harvested 525 orders for new aircraft during the first half of the year, worth 62 billion U.S. dollars based on current list prices and a leading global market share of 52 percent, Airbus said here on Monday.
The orders comprise 335 A320 family aircraft, 105 A330s, 82 A350s and three A380s.
Taking into account some cancellations and transfers to the all-new A350, the 487 net orders to June this year are almost double the number of deliveries of the same period last year, Airbus said.
With additional orders to be expected during the week-long Farnborough Air Show starting on Monday, this backlog will increase "significantly," the European aircraft manufacturer said.
Overall, the number of outstanding orders for Airbus aircraft has now reached almost 3,700, an equivalent of around six years' production, it said.
The A320 single-aisle family of aircraft consistently captures about half of all orders in its market segment during the first six months of the year, gaining 335 gross orders, or 64 percent of all new Airbus aircraft orders in terms of units.
There are more than 2,600 A320 family aircraft in the outstanding order backlog, which is said to be benefiting from a continuous improvement program and would remain the most efficient product in this size category.
Moving up in size to the medium-to-long-range twin-aisle category, the "highly cost-efficient" A330, which has no direct competitor in production now, continues to be a strong seller, having already earned 105 orders in 2008 to the end of June, Airbus said.
Included in this total are 11 new orders for A330-200 Freighters bringing this program to 77 firm orders from nine customers.
The A330's credentials and versatility were further underscored by a contract for 14 A330-200s for the UK's Royal Air Force's (RAF) military tanker requirement. The total outstanding backlog for A330s now stands at 425 firm orders.
Meanwhile, the new A350 XWB program garnered a further 82 orders from January to June 2008 and the pre-Farnborough order backlog has now reached 374 aircraft for 23 customers. This makes the A350 XWB the fastest-selling wide-body aircraft ever in its first year and a half since program launch, it said.
The most recent pre-Farnborough order in 2008 for the eco-efficient A380 flagship came from Korean Airlines, which placed a repeat order for three aircraft, increasing its total for the type to eight.
This brings the current A380, claimed to "set to become the flagship of the 21st century" by the European group, to 192 firm orders from 16 customers, with five of these now in very reliable airline service.
In terms of the overall distribution of Airbus orders across all its models, the rapidly growing Asia-Pacific region accounted for a correspondingly high level of commercial activity, with 222 gross orders representing some 42 percent of new Airbus aircraft purchases during the first six months of 2008.
Source: Xinhua
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