2021 Paris Air Show cancelled
 

https://www.siae.fr/Data/ElFinder/s4...?_t=1607336224

Inevitable, I suppose. At least they gave plenty of notice.

Well, if it was inevitable then they could have announced it 9 months ago...

You haven't been there for a while? It's the biggest global industry meeting.

The PR part might be one thing but they have like how many 140k trade visitors? That is before the weekend and the public.

oldchina

You obviously have not been there for a long time . Everybody is there , and one the main objective is networking and exchanging business cards. The contracts might not be signed during that week but the contacts that led to those contracts will come from places like these. These shows are far, far more that Boeing or Airbus. It is a thousand of other aviation businesses that come up there . A lot of young people find a contact for a future job, or , during the open days , a vocation .
To come back to the cancellation , sad news, but expected.

As Paris and Farnborough alternate each year, and Farnborough was cancelled this year, it looks like the next Paris show will be in 2023.

oldchina, I think you are right. Big business is not made at these air shows or trade fairs.

Maybe so. But as "ATC Watcher" already wrote, there is a lot more to these trade shows than just big business. If you want to build (with lots of public subsidies everywhere in the world) and operate flying machines, the most important thing is the tax- and ticket-paying public that you need to get behind you. And all the young people that you need to design, build and fly those aeroplanes in the decades to come.

I was introduced to aviaton by airshows and I got valuable inputs for my career from visits to Le Bourget as an university student in aerospace engineering. These trips to Paris were organised by the faculty of my university becaue they too knew well, how much motivation the future generation of engineers would draw from it.

So "big business", who cares? You can't sell aircraft that no one is designing for you.

When I worked in Aviation and went to these shows, it wasn't about contracts, it was about Networking. Drinking/eating with contacts, and making new contacts. Plus one saw planes that you don't see every day. Even the beancounters liked watching the displays.

I care OLDCHINA!!
 

I care so much that I am still active in visiting Airfields and Airports,linked to semi. pro Photography at my age of soon to be 80 years young.
I came from an impoverished and disadvantaged background.
The only thing which kept me sane from a very young age was a growing interest in Aircraft.
My escapism was, as soon as I could, I would spend hours at RAF Colerne in the late 40s early fifties. watching all the movements .
This suited my temperament as I could be on my own for awhile away from home circumstances.
I found that later in life when facing and dealing with serious problems that I automatically turned to my Interest in Aviation/Aircraft .
Every time it has help me deal with serious trials and tribulations when they have proved to be a problem.
So I may be a avid "Spotter" and maybe a bit of an Anorak, but OLD CHINA do not decry people like me out of hand.
There but for the grace of whoever!

Having worked a number of Farnborough and Le Bourget shows in a previous life (though sadly none of the other more exotic venues), I can vouch for the fact that business does indeed get done at those events - usually far away from the cameras and press conferences.

The value of getting people face-to-face shouldn't be underestimated, even when a background of noisy fast jets sometimes makes conversation difficult. :O

I too worked a couple of Farnborough's, one Paris, and three NBAA's back in the '80's, and agree with:

ATC Watcher

Agreed, Paris is very efficient to have 10-20 meetings that do not justify dedicated trips. And invite crucial customers, partners, suppliers for a long sit with with good wine and food and hear how they feel about what's happening. Specially real late at the hotel bar. Plus you always meet people you didn't expect to see (again), colleagues of a few decades ago.

As you say it's not about Airbus and Boeing hanging around in Chalets, uniforms trying looking important, it's a about the thousands of businesses and people from all parts of aerospace, all countries being in the same place.

Paris is the biggest gathering of all, with the traditional chaotic public transport, heat, rain, drama. Wonder when the last one was cancelled, WW2 I guess...

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....f3d25fa64.jpeg
Paris Air Show 1921, rights: https://www.gettyimages.dk

Regarding rain: One year (1987 maybe?) my wife went along with me to Le Bourget. Durnig the public day we were caught out by a thunderstorm while at the outside static display. No way to get back to the exhibition halls dry... So together with at least 1000 other people, kids in teeshirts and businessmen in suit and tie we sought shelter under the wings of the Antonow An-225 Mriya. This changed the view of my wife regarding the usefulness of aircraft forever :-) Statistically I guess that someone else following this thread may have been under that wing together with us that day!

I went to the Salons at Le Bourget, 2007 - 2017, and got either soaked or sunburnt! Best one was 2011, and since then they went downhill...
i didnt go to last one in 2019, but it sounds like I didnt miss much....
Another one bites the dust...

Thanks Keesje , one additional point for the non-believers, is the huge money all these companies are investing in participating to those airshows, being Farnborough or le Bourget, If it was not worth their while they would not come back year after year.
and an off-Thread if the mods agree:,
the photo you posted from 1921 shows how advanced some people were 100 years ago, this prototype on the front looks a bit like Virgin Galactic Space 2 craft no ?..

There is also the economic impact of the visitor spending, transport, hotels, restaurants and local businesses. Any trade show has benefits that extend into other areas.

Does anyone really care that the show has been cancelled? Much more important matters all around the aviation world....

You are absolutely right, Longtimer, I just read in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ( FAZ ) that Lufthansa are making 1000 pilots redundant ( 500 Captains and 500 First Officers ). Like you say, there are other problems in the aviation world...!

You read too fast BEA, it is only a threat from Spohr to force VC (pilot Union) to give away more , and like always in Germany things will probably get sorted out behind the scenes, but whatever happens will not be good at all for pilots and cabin crew at the moment. Our whole industry is under very difficult times this winter.

You need to bring back aviation and flying back to the general public for starters. This is why trade shows like this are needed as well. Aside from the business networking going on before.
Airline people should be aware that more is needed than video conferencing to sell products and services.

ATC - Watcher, I did not read the FAZ note too fast. Of course there is always room for negotiations, but it sounded like the decision is final. FAZ, as you probably know, is the most reputeable newspaper in the country.

As long a Covid 19 is a serious threat, with no end in sight, and with countries closing their borders, there is no way to bring back air travel to the general public. I just see a booking going down the drain. Sadly, but a fact, I have to live with. Even if people have been vaccinated, it might take years to bring air travel back to pre Covid standard. Those who lost their jobs, will have other priorities, than planning for holidays.

BEA. I agree FAZ is a very serious paper, did not see the article, but I had read Spohr quote differently on line (above) and I have not yet seen the VC reaction ( nothing on their web site either )so not sure it is final . My guess it is just to push the negotiations towards more concessions from VC. But any way it will end, it will be bad for the crews, that is for sure.
That is unfortunately what I hear also . The Low costs might get back to some form of sustainable ops in 2022 on domestic ( e.g. intra European) but for legacy carriers and long haul it will depend on vaccines effectiveness , travel restrictions and economic recovery . I now hear some openly mention 2029 to get back to 2019 levels.:(.
This afternoon Sanofi, an old serious vaccine laboratory said their phase 3 tests are not conclusive and current high effectiveness is only on young people, so they do not expect to deliver their vaccine before end of 2021.

Is anyone here serious?
IATA traffic is down 80% plus in their latest statistics (https://centreforaviation.com/news/i...covery-1042061) and we pretend 500 Captains is an issue??
The industry is in danger of disappearing, but management and the workers are both stuck in existing rituals. Sad that no one any better ideas.

In danger of disappearing - wise words, etudiant.

Future Air Show Will Be In . . .?
 

Your friendly forum-neighborhood SLF/attorney, first of all, is staying away from both semi-mourning the semi-death of international civil aviation, as well as overtly prognosticating how bad or how long the depression in air transport will last.

Instead since the thread is about Paris-2021, and for what little it probably counts, since about 1976 when I first read about events like Farnborough and Paris (in a well-known aviation and space weekly periodical) I realized what a fabulous experience it would be to attend either one or both - but only if a professional situation could someday be attained in a part of the industry covered by (at that time) Industry Observer. Heck, as a kid I used to run to one of the observation decks at a certain large Chicago airport every trip there to see people off or pick them up, time permitting. To be at one of the international shows, able to observe? Almost as motivational as an enduring fondness for air travel itself, maybe more. So it's sad, separately from the teetering, near demise of the industry, at the spikey-protein points of a super-novel viral scourge, to know Paris is off the books, for its next round anyway.

Well, almost staying away.... I can't connect the dots from where things stand now to what reason and experience tell us the future will bring, but (IMHO) the benefits of air transport, and the contributions it makes to virtually all sectors of any even medium-sized economy, will lead to its return. Otherwise, just like I'm constantly told to replace "manned" in all earlier references to human spaceflight with "crewed", we should shred all the nicely packaged IATA and ICAO growth projections from over the past, what, ten years or so? And let's not forget also to shred reports like the Wise Persons Group on the Future of the Single European Sky (April 2019) along with many, many reports and documents about future ATM and the aviation sector in general. If I have to pronounce a hope, it would be that the vaccine as inoculation will bring some restoration - but as an example of "get-off-your-cellphone and develop something complex technologically fast" ingenuity it will be the real restorative attitude adjustment. Meanwhile, we'll always have Paris . . . no?

The air show part might be nice to watch for the public but the trade show part is what is and will remain relevant. A lot of technologies are changing, carbon, hydrogen, unmanned, electric, fabrication, computing and such, so new suppliers and innovators are looked for. There is every reason for the industry to meet again when this is over. It's not a thing of the past. Skype is not enough. Not sure if every trade show will survive but some, including Paris, are needed.