But Airbus Still Leads In Deliveries

Investor Lawsuits against EADS and its commercial manufacturing subsidiary, Airbus, are just one worry for the European plane-making consortium. Another, perhaps more pressing worry is the tally sheet.

So far this year, Airbus says it's taken 117 firm orders for aircraft. That's less than half the orders it had taken by this time last year... and it pales mightily in comparison to orders taken this year to date by archrival Boeing.

The Chicago-based aerospace giant has in hand at this point 480 orders... up from 439 during the first half of last year. Which means that, six months in to the year... just about any way you look at it, Boeing is set to regain the commercial aviation sales crown. On the manufacturing side, however,Airbus is still king -- with 219 deliveries in the first half of this year, compared to Boeing's 193.

Now... how will Airbus address the sudden shortfall of orders? That's a big job for the new CEO... Christian Streiff. For one thing, he's expected to announce big changes in the A350 program at the upcoming Farnborough Air Show.

That's almost certain to drive up the A350's development cost... which already stands at $5.8 billion. And it could delay the rollout of the A350 beyond 2012.

FMI: www.airbus.com