Jul. 18—Boeing Co. and Airbus SE sales staff will hit the tarmac this week at the Farnborough International Air Show, the first of the biggest commercial aviation shows since the pandemic largely shut down air travel.
With most Covid-19 travel restrictions lifted in the West, demand for flights has soared this summer, snarling airports, especially in Europe.
Airlines have scrambled to rehire staff they let go during the pandemic. They are also buying jets again, after many canceled or put off orders over the last two years.
It is a greatly changed aviation landscape in other ways from 2018, the last time the industry gathered at Farnborough, near London.
The show is held once every two years, alternating with the Paris Air Show, last held in 2019. Both venues canceled their shows earlier in the pandemic.
Boeing goes to Farnborough amid various challenges — including lingering regulatory issues with its 737 MAX jet.
The model was a hot seller at the last Farnborough show, but was subsequently grounded for nearly two years, following fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019.
While orders for the jet have picked up since the MAX won regulatory approval to fly again in most countries, sales of the model have lagged behind Airbus's rival A320 since the start of last year.
Airbus recently won a mega order for 298 planes from Chinese carriers. Boeing is still awaiting the plane's return to skies in China, a market chief executive David Calhoun has said is crucial.
The 737 MAX has suffered other setbacks. Mr. Calhoun recently suggested the longest version of the model may never fly with passengers, because it may not win regulatory approval by a year-end legal deadline.
Airbus, meanwhile, has gained market share, bolstered by its biggest A321neo model, and is rapidly increasing production of the entire A320 family.
That has caused problems of its own. With supply chains still discombobulated by the pandemic, Airbus has said it can't build the planes fast enough to meet demand.
Airbus and Boeing both face supply-chain challenges and are struggling to get parts quickly enough to mint the new, fuel-efficient aircraft that airlines want as travel demand rebounds from the worst of the pandemic.
At the weeklong show, the plane makers plan to highlight their latest products and technological advances, while trumpeting deals for new passenger, cargo and military aircraft.
So far this year, Boeing has trailed Airbus in sales. The U.S. plane maker has netted 186 orders for new jets compared with 259 for Airbus. The Airbus total doesn't include the recent order from China.
Airbus's A320 family of jets now commands a 59% share of the outstanding orders for narrow-body jets, compared with the 41% for Boeing's 737 MAX family, according to aviation data provider Ascend by Cirium.
Industry officials and analysts will be looking to see if the U.S. plane maker can bolster confidence in its ability to execute, said Michel Merluzeau of AIR, a research company in Seattle.
That means increasing production and delivering aircraft without the quality problems that have arisen with the 737 MAX and other models, he said.
A Boeing spokesman said the company was focused on driving stability in its operations.
"We are confident about the future, because of the hard and important work we've done and are continuing to do to strengthen our company and position for the long term," he said.
Boeing stepped up its 737 MAX deliveries in June, handing over 43 of the jets to customers, 14 more than in May.
The U.S. plane maker could also get a boost at the airshow from big orders. Delta Air Lines is expected to announce an order that could add more than 100 of the largest 737 MAX jets to its fleet, according to people familiar with the matter.
Boeing also plans to showcase a new plane, known as the 737 MAX 10, with tours on the ground and flights over the airfield where the show takes place.
But Mr. Calhoun has cast doubt on the model's future, telling a trade publication recently that the plane maker would have to consider canceling the MAX 10 if Congress didn't grant an extension allowing U.S. air-safety regulators to approve it without a modern cockpit design.
Under a law passed in 2020, in response to the MAX crashes, regulators can't approve new aircraft without modern cockpit-alerting systems.
That new requirement kicks in at the end of the year.
Boeing had thought it had more than enough time with the law's two-year window to accommodate the MAX 10's certification without a cockpit overhaul, people familiar with the matter said.
But it still hasn't won a signoff, amid heightened scrutiny of the plane maker's submissions since the fatal accidents, current and former government officials said.
The Federal Aviation Administration declined to comment but has said only Congress could change the cockpit-system deadline.
The 737 MAX 10 would help Boeing head off Airbus's dominance of the market for the biggest narrow-body jets, the workhorse of the aviation industry.
Airbus is planning to increase production of its aircraft and build 75 A320s a month by 2025, a 50% surge from current rates.
At the last major airshow, in Paris in 2019, Airbus announced the A321XLR variant, which can fly farther and hold more passengers than Boeing's MAX 10.
The A321XLR last month operated its first test flight and is set to enter into service in early 2024, a few months later than first planned, as regulators weigh whether its new fuel tank design meets safety standards.
The aircraft has already proven popular with airlines and lessors, many of which have chosen the jet to replace their aging fleets of Boeing 757 and 767 aircraft.
Boeing faces other challenges going into the show. It hasn't been able to deliver its 787 Dreamliner for much of the past two years, leaving customers without new wide-bodies as long-haul, international travel picks up.
The plane maker has been awaiting FAA approval for a series of fixes to address manufacturing defects.
Boeing has been expecting Dreamliner deliveries to resume as soon as this summer, but the FAA isn't expected to give the green light until some point after the airshow, people familiar with the matter said.
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