The ceremony at the Elysee palace in Paris exuded the full pomp of the French state. Under gilded ceilings dripping with chandeliers, executives of Airbus SE and the agency that buys planes for China’s airlines signed an order worth $35 billion as French President Emmanuel Macron and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, looked on.
Normally, such an event would be full of gloating. In commercial aviation—a zero-sum industry with just two global players, Airbus and Boeing —the rivalry is intense and victories are savoured and celebrated. But these aren’t normal times, and the ceremony marking Airbus’s biggest deal in several years was unusually muted. Guillaume Faury, soon to be Airbus’s chief executive officer, was subdued, calling the massive order “a sign of confidence between us and our Chinese partners.”
