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Airbus ends Farnborough on a high
 Singapore Airlines announced plans to buy nine more A380s at Farnborough. QUICKVOTEYOUR E-MAIL ALERTSFARNBOROUGH, England (CNN) -- Airbus went into the Farnborough Airshow facing a damage limitation exercise amid delays in production to their flagship A380 "superjumbo" and design doubts surrounding their new A350. To make matters worse, the company was in the midst of a management crisis that had cost the jobs of Noel Forgeard, CEO of Airbus' parent company EADS, and Airbus CEO Gustav Humbert. Yet the European aviation giant signed off a busy week of business on a high Friday with Singapore Airlines' announcement that it had committed to ordering 20 A350 XWBs and nine additional A380s in a deal worth around $7.5 billion. That followed 114 orders from airlines worth around $9.6 billion earlier in the week, mostly for the manufacturer's narrow body stalwart A320. At Monday's launch of the re-designed A350 XWB, new Airbus CEO Christian Streiff candidly admitted his company faced a "serious crisis" in its relationship with its customers. But on Friday he described Airbus' deal with Singapore Airlines -- which is due to take delivery of the first A380 off the production line before the end of the year -- as "an enormous vote of confidence." Jim Smith, Editor of Jane's Transport Finance, told CNN that Streiff had overseen a good recovery job and secured some "very significant orders." "He put a pretty good case forward," said Smith. "I would say at the beginning of the week there must have been some seriously worried people until these orders were announced." But Smith pointed out that most of Airbus' sales had been for the proven A320 and said Airbus still had a major sales job to do on the A350 and A380 if it hoped to compete with archrivals Boeing. The American manufacturer has jumped ahead in the mid-range market with orders for its 787 Dreamliner. He said Airbus would rather have seen a few more headline-grabbing orders for its new aircraft. "Boeing is ruling the roost on wide bodies," he said. "Airbus came out very strongly towards the end of the show but if you look at the planes they sold, apart from Singapore Airlines, they're mostly narrow bodies. That market is already established and those aircraft have a track record." As well as launching the A380 and redesigning the A350, Smith said Airbus would likely have to replace the A320 within seven years as advances in composite material fuselages increased demand for lighter, more fuel efficient aircraft in the lucrative narrow body market. "There are tremendous research and development costs on both the A380 and the A350. If you start looking at a narrow body replacement for the A320 then you have three gigantic R and D sums," said Smith. 
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