Airbus and Boeing share $19bn Emirates order

AIRBUS SAS and Boeing Co, the world’s two biggest planemakers, won orders from Emirates, the Middle East’s fastest-growing airline, for 67 new planes, which the carrier valued at as much as $19 billion.

The order includes 21 of Airbus’s planned double-decker A380 airliners, 20 Airbus A340s and 26 Boeing 777s, the planemakers said at Paris Air Show press conferences. Boeing’s figure includes 22 planes already on order from General Electric Co. and American International Group Inc’s plane-leasing units.

Airbus will probably surpass Chicago-based Boeing as the world’s largest planemaker this year as it delivers more aircraft than its US rival for the first time and gets more orders for new airliners, analysts said. The 555-seat A380 will become the world’s biggest passenger jet when it enters service in 2006, about 35% larger than Boeing’s 747, which seats 420.