Airbus overtook Boeing in unadjusted aircraft orders for this year after last month's Farnborough Airshow but continued to lag behind its US rival when accounting for cancellations, company data showed yesterday.

The Airbus Group planemaking subsidiary won 980 aircraft orders between January and July, and said it had 705 net orders, beating its newly introduced target for the year, said a report in the Gulf Daily News (GDN), our sister publication.

Boeing reported 837 gross orders and 783 net sales after cancellations between January 1 and July 29.

Following a rise in the number of cancellations and amid growing industry concerns over a cyclical downturn, Airbus said last week that these included conversions between models and showed no underlying weakness.

It said some cancelled current-generation A320s would be replaced by orders for a revamped version of the same model, due to make its maiden flight in September.

It reported 44 new cancellations of its A320 model in July. Of these, 39 represented conversions between the two different models of A320. - TradeArabia News Service