The Volocopter ‘Volocity’ air taxi is on display at the International Aeronautics and Space Show at Paris-Le Bourget Airport on June 18, 2023 (AFP/JULIEN DE ROSA)
Mega-orders of planes, aerial demonstrations to dream and presentations of technologies to reduce the climate footprint of aviation: the high aeronautical mass of Le Bourget opens Monday in a buoyant context but subject to societal pressures.
French President Emmanuel Macron inaugurates in the morning this 54th edition of the international aeronautical and space show, the most important in the world.
Among the 2,500 exhibitors, he should meet some of the 1,130 French companies present, which make the aerospace sector the leading contributor to the French trade balance (22.7 billion euros in 2022).
The president already announced on Friday a plan of 2.2 billion euros to support the maturation of technologies to reduce the carbon footprint of the plane. This notably involves the development of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF), the main means of reducing CO2 emissions.
The biennial gathering at Le Bourget is billed as “the show for recovery” after the pandemic which dried up airline finances, permanently disrupted manufacturers’ supply chains and forced the 2021 edition to be cancelled.
It’s “the return of the good old days of the excitement of the show”, enthuses Guillaume Faury, boss of Airbus and the Grouping of French Aeronautical and Space Industries (Gifas), the organizer of the event.
The fin of an Air France plane next to models of the Ariane 1 (g) and Ariane 5 (d) rockets at the international aeronautical and space show at Paris-Le Bourget airport on June 18, 2023 (AFP/ JULIAN DE ROSA)
More than 320,000 visitors are expected from June 19 to 25 at Le Bourget airport, north of Paris, the first four days being reserved for professionals; the general public will be able to visit it from Friday.
If the American exhibitors came in force, Russia is persona non grata because of the sanctions imposed on Moscow. China will also be represented, although we will have to wait for other editions to see the country’s first modern medium-haul aircraft, the COMAC C919, which wants to find a place between the best-selling Airbus A320neo and Boeing 737 MAX.
While global air traffic is on track to return to its pre-Covid level, airlines are looking to renew their fleets with more profitable aircraft, which consume less fuel and therefore emit less CO2 to respond to the injunction. to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.
And faced with aircraft manufacturers whose delivery slots are full for the next few years, they anticipate their growth while world air traffic should double by this horizon.
– F-35 and electric planes –
How many Airbuses, Boeings? “Everyone will look at the big orders,” says Guillaume Faury. But due to the lack of events during the pandemic, “the habit of concentrating everything at trade shows has been lost a bit, so I’m not sure we have the same dynamic as we had before the Covid”, he relativized during the Paris Air Forum conference on Friday.
The Airbus A400M Atlas military transport plane is on display at the International Aeronautical and Space Show at Paris-Le Bourget airport on June 18, 2023 (AFP/JULIEN DE ROSA)
There will be orders, assures Stan Deal, head of Boeing’s commercial aircraft branch.
“But our main objective remains to continue to work with the industry to recover from Covid,” he told reporters on Sunday.
The challenge is major for the two aircraft manufacturers, faced with the difficulties of their supplier chains to follow the upswings to deliver the aircraft.
The show will also devote Friday to young people to present the range of trades in a sector in dire need of arms and brains.
Turkish drones are displayed at the International Aeronautical and Space Show at Paris-Le Bourget Airport on June 18, 2023 (AFP/JULIEN DE ROSA)
In a context of the return of the war in Ukraine and the increase in military budgets, particularly in Europe, military aeronautical equipment will also be at the center of attention. Especially in air defense.
Paris is organizing a ministerial conference on the subject on the sidelines of the show to try to harmonize positions between Europeans, whose anti-aircraft capabilities are few and disparate.
A total of 158 planes, drones and helicopters, from commercial jumbo jets to prototypes of electric planes or “flying taxis”, passing by the American F-35 or a supersonic strategic bomber of the United States Air Force, will be exhibited on 125,000 m2.
© 2023 AFP
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