An order from Kazakhstan’s newly-launched budget carrier came as the Chicago-based company works to try and win US regulatory approval to get the plane back in the sky by early next year.

Investigators of the Russian plane crash in Egypt are “90% sure” the noise heard in the final second of a cockpit recording was an explosion caused by a bomb, a member of the investigation team told Reuters yesterday.

It was a security consultant’s nightmare and a moment to savour — royalty, airline bosses, plane-makers and press hordes wedged into the same overcrowded room wanting to see the same thing: the colour of money in the oil-rich and fast-growing Gulf.