Airshow Bucks Economic Trend With $72 Billion In Orders

ADS, the UK’s AeroSpace, Defence and Security trade organization and its subsidiary company Farnborough International Limited (FIL) on Friday released the orders and attendee figures for the industry portion of the Farnborough International Airshow.

The 2012 show was sold out with an increased number of exhibiting companies (1506) compared to the 2010 show (1450). This year’s event saw excellent engagement from decision-makers with 15 UK Government ministers including the Prime Minister, as well as ministers from overseas plus 70 delegations from 46 countries, in attendance. As expected trade visitors overall were down by 9% which is in line with efficiency savings expected throughout the aerospace industry and within our customer base.
 
Orders for the show so far total $72 billion. This is significantly up on the orders for 2010 which were totalled $47 billion, and only $16 billion down from the peak boom year in 2008 when the show saw $88.7 billion of orders.
 
The Farnborough International Airshow also contributes about $31 million to the local economy around Farnborough through the contribution from international visitors and companies.

"The 2012 Farnborough International Airshow has been exceptionally successful and the figures demonstrate the growing mood of optimism that there has been around the show this year, which is very encouraging given the current global economic climate," said Rees Ward, CEO at ADS. “To see over $72 billion worth of business done and so dramatically improving on 2010’s figures is great news for a global industry."

"Against the odds in the middle of a global recession we’ve witnessed yet another great Farnborough International Airshow for the UK and world aerospace industry," added Shaun Ormrod, Chief Executive of FIL. "The exhibitor participation and the $72 billion worth of orders, takes us back to the heady days of 2008 when FIL announced a total of $88 billion in orders. This fantastic Farnborough week that we have just had confirms FIL’s strategy of delivering Quality and global reach. We have ensured that our customers got even better value out of their time at the show, and as we all know time is money."
 
A final total for the whole week of the Airshow will be published later this week.

FMI: www.farnborough.com