Airbus and Boeing signed more than $25 billion in orders to kick off the Paris Air Show on Monday, but the European jetmaker's appearance at the industry's biggest annual event suffered a setback when its star superjumbo clipped a wing.

The haul from the first day of the show was an improvement from recent years despite a challenging environment for the industry, which faces high fuel prices, a slowing global economy and uncertainty caused by violence in the Middle East and Japan's natural disasters.

Airbus topped the totals, signing orders and commitments for 142 aircraft worth $15 billion at list prices, the company said Monday.

Of note were firm orders for 90 of its A320neo, a version of the workhorse jet that's been revamped to make it more fuel efficient.

Rival Boeing countered with more than $11 billion worth of orders and commitments for 56 of its jets, including an order by Qatar Airways for six of its 777 craft in a $1.7 billion deal.

Airlines are particularly interested in energy-efficient models at this year's show displays included biofuel and hybrid engines, as well as a solar plane.

One star, Airbus' superjumbo A380, was grounded after breaking a wing tip on a taxiway structure, the latest in a string of embarrassments for the company.

The plane suffered the damage Sunday after a slow-speed collision with a building at the Le Bourget airport, where the world's largest and oldest aviation showcase is taking place, spokesman Alexander Reinhardt, of Airbus' holding company EADS, said Monday.

An A380 flown by Air France clipped the tail of a regional jet on a taxiway at New York's JFK Airport in April. A video of the collision of the double-deck Airbus with the smaller Comair jet was widely shown on television and the Internet.

For the Paris show, Airbus quickly found a replacement jet for demonstration flights an A380 operated by Korean Air. But the planemaker is facing other setbacks.

The Airbus A400M military transport plane had to cancel a demonstration flight because of what the manufacturer described as a minor gearbox problem, although the aircraft made a fly-over during President Nicolas Sarkozy's visit to the air show on Monday.

On Saturday, Airbus announced that two of the three versions of its new wide-body jet, the A350, would be delayed about two years.

The stretched A350-1000 is being pushed back to 2017 to give engine supplier Rolls-Royce time to develop a more powerful motor that will extend the jet's range, Airbus said. The standard version of the plane, the A350-900, is still expected to arrive in the second half of 2013.

Airbus' chief salesman John Leahy defended the delay, saying the revamped A350-1000 would best rival Boeing's 777-300ER by flying 400 nautical miles further while burning 25% less fuel.

"Yes, we were supposed to come out in 2015, but customers said, 'Give us some extra performance, and we can take the delay,'" he said.

Airbus has booked 390 orders and commitments for the A320neo since its commercial launch in December even though it won't come into service until 2015 from airlines squeezed by higher fuel prices.

Boeing hasn't chosen how it will respond, but marketing executive Randy Tinseth said it would decide in coming months whether to upgrade its existing 737 or design a new plane, which wouldn't be in the air until the end of the decade.

Boeing and Honeywell are boasting of having the first biofuel-powered trans-Atlantic flight, with Boeing flying in its 747-8 freighter from Seattle on a mix of biofuel and jet fuel, while Honeywell touts the "green jet fuel" it developed to power a Gulfstream business jet that flew from New Jersey to Le Bourget.

EADS will also demonstrate the world's first diesel-electric hybrid aircraft at the show, another leg in its strategy of cutting its fleet's carbon dioxide emissions by 50% by 2050.