Airbus said on Friday it had more than doubled its year-to-date orders due to a bumper Farnborough Airshow, but the pick-up was marred by the cancellation of $3 billion of orders from Dubai Aerospace Enterprise.   

The Dubai-based lessor slashed an order for 100 Airbus passenger jets by 25 percent in volume terms, shedding 18 orders for narrow-body A320 planes and 7 orders for A350-900 mid-sized jets, figures released by the European planemaker showed.

The move brings to more than $8 billion the catalogue value of apparent DAE cancellations, totalling 50 aircraft, revealed in Airbus and Boeing data published in the past 24 hours.

Neither planemaker agreed to comment on cancellations. DAE was not available for comment.

Leasing companies were hard hit during the financial crisis though some returned with bulk orders for narrow-body planes at last months' Farnborough trade show, which delivered unexpectedly robust evidence of an economic turnaround.   

There have been several specialist industry reports that part of DAE's order portfolio would be transferred to Dubai's Emirates Airline, which ordered 30 more 777s at Farnborough.   

Excluding the effect of cancellations, Airbus said its cumulative 2010 orders jumped sharply to 286 planes by the end of July from 131 planes in the first half of the year. Deliveries reached 298 aircraft. The EADS subsidiary is targeting over 400 sales and 500 deliveries.

On Thursday, Boeing data revealed cancellations for 25 jets worth over $5 billion at catalogue prices. Comparisons with previously published data suggested the cuts came from DAE.

DAE had ordered 15 787-8 Dreamliners and 10 777-300ER aircraft in 2007, at the peak of a global order boom. Boeing's latest backlog did not include any such wide-body passenger jets for the leasing and repair firm. It did however have 91 unfilled DAE orders for narrow-body jets and freighters.

DAE also still has 52 Airbus A320 planes and 23 A350-900s, a model designed to compete with the Boeing Dreamliner, on order with a total list value of $10 billion at current prices.

Airbus sales chief John Leahy said at Farnborough that it was 'no secret' that DAE was facing disruption over its orders.  After adjusting for total cancellations in the past month, Airbus reported a net total of 245 new orders in the first seven months of the year, up from 117 by the end of June.

The data leaves Boeing ahead of its rival in the race for 2010 orders as the industry exits recession, though it still ranks in second place behind Airbus in terms of production.
   

Boeing said it had received total orders for 319 planes between January and July, and a net total of 255 planes after adjusting for cancellations. The net orders include 229 narrow-body Boeing 737 short-haul and medium-haul planes. - Reuters