The Paris Air Show has been cancelled for the first time since World War Two, raising questions about the speed of the aerospace industry’s recovery from the COVID-19 crisis.
Organisers said Europe’s largest industrial showcase, which attracts over 300,000 people every other June in alternation with Britain’s Farnborough Airshow, would not go ahead next year because of the pandemic’s “unprecedented impact” on aerospace.
In an official statement, International Parish Air Show announced on Monday, “The next edition of the Paris Air Show will be held in June 2023, at a date that will be announced shortly. Exhibitors will receive a full refund of all sums already paid and the Paris air Show will take full financial responsibility for this decision.”
“We are obviously disappointed not to be able to hold the 2021 edition of the Paris Air Show. After many months of all trade show activities being suspended throughout the world, the entire international aerospace and defence community was very much looking forward to being able to meet. We have already started work to ensure that the 2023 edition celebrates the resurgence of the aerospace industry on an international scale,” explained Patrick Daher, Chairman of the International Paris Air Show and Chairman of the Daher Group.
Gilles Fournier, CEO of the International Paris Air Show, added, “We would like to extend a huge thank you to all of our partners, exhibitors and service providers for the trust they have placed in us. We share their disappointment, as the Paris Air Show continues to be an extremely popular event, even in periods of crisis. The 2023 edition will be larger than ever, and our teams are already working to ensure its success.”
Aviation experts said the early cancellation reflected the high advance costs of the event, estimated to generate total spending by exhibitors and attendees of $1 billion, including $400 million on building, temporary hires and security alone.
Scrapping the 2021 show also deprives the industry of a deadline to stimulate deals and focus attention on new products.
“The Paris Airshow could and should have been a catalyst for recovery. The organisers have clearly listened to the big exhibitors and decided it was not worth the risk,” said veteran analyst Howard Wheeldon, who has attended dozens of air shows.
“The bigger worry is that this is saying that confidence won’t be returning soon, not only in aviation but also in the wider post-COVID world,” he added.
The biennial jamboree traces its roots back to 1909 and had previously only been cancelled during the twentieth century’s two world wars. International Paris Air Show is still the most important show in the world for the aeronautics and space industry. In France, the show is a real driver for this sector and a major catalyst for much international collaboration. As such it is the place where the sector’s decision makers choose to meet and gather as they come here to exhibit, sell and buy all the latest innovations. The last edition at Le Bourget outside Paris generated contract announcements worth $140 billion.
Industry Barometer
Dominated by the duel for jetliner orders between Airbus and Boeing, the seven-day extravaganza had already become a tamer affair as demand peaked and a breed of cost-conscious executives less interested in the PR drumbeat entered industry boardrooms.
But the 2021 show was emerging as a barometer for fragile demand, especially as Boeing seeks to relaunch its 737 MAX after it was approved last month following a 20-month safety ban.
In one of the most dramatic air show coups of recent years, the planemaker unveiled a tentative 200-plane rescue order for the troubled MAX at the last event in 2019, but the fate of that order now looks uncertain as coronavirus rips up growth plans.
In a sign of pandemic-related changes in doing business, which in turn threaten to crimp air travel, Boeing last week announced another key MAX order online on Zoom.
Airbus, which dates back to a Franco-German co-operation deal signed at the show in 1969 and which has made a practice of drumming up suspense over orders from Gulf and low-cost carriers, said cancelling was “difficult … but responsible”. (With input from Reuters. All photos through International Paris Air Show 2019 flickr photostream) )
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