Boeing and Airbus vie for SMBC narrowbody order before Farnborough

Boeing and Airbus are each competing to land a major narrowbody order from lessor SMBC Aviation Capital, with Boeing in advanced talks for about 100 737 MAX jets and Airbus pursuing a similarly sized A320neo commitment, Bloomberg reported July 16 ahead of the Farnborough International Airshow. The July 20-24 show could see orders and commitments for up to 875 commercial aircraft, according to a forecast from aviation-analytics firm IBA. Philippine Airlines is also reported to be close to splitting a widebody order between 15 Boeing 787-10s and nine Airbus A350-1000s.