Strange Days at the Paris Air Show for Airbus (NASDAQ:EADSY), Boeing (NYSE:BA), and the Israeli Defense Industry

The picture above tells a lot of the story, but not all of it, oddly enough. This may be one of the strangest iterations of the Paris Air Show seen in recent memory, as aircraft maker Airbus (EADSY) landed some new contracts, Boeing’s (BA) leadership stayed out of the way following the Air India crash, and Israel found itself the victim of the strangest snub in recent memory…as pictured above. Regardless, both Boeing and Airbus found their shares up today, and not too far from the same amount: modestly.

Airbus had a field day in Paris, bringing home a slate of new sales. Given that Europe is Airbus’ home territory, and Boeing has had a range of issues—plus, it presents a difficult picture due to tariffs—the idea that Airbus would be favored at the Paris Air Show probably should have been expected. Certainly Boeing did not go away empty-handed, but Airbus picked up new orders aplenty, including 30 A320NEO craft and 10 A350 freighters from AviLease.

Boeing, meanwhile, had a bit of a subdued presence at the event, with Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes (as well as Executive Vice President) Stephanie Pope visibly absent. While we know that Boeing came out strong with new things to show off at the event, we also know that May was huge for Boeing orders, so a certain amount of subdued presence makes sense here. But with the recent Air India disaster coloring things—particularly since it was a 777 Dreamliner that was involved, the first such incident in the plane’s history—that Boeing might keep some of its top brass home during the event is not especially surprising.

But perhaps even bigger than the Boeing and Airbus issues was the unexpected snub delivered to Israel over its presentation of weapons systems. That there are defense systems present at the Paris Air Show is nothing new, nor should be surprising. In fact, reports note that interest in “…the defense side of the show…” was high, particularly given geopolitical conditions these days.

Apparently, the Paris Air Show took exception to Israeli companies, who found their stands forcibly closed as they displayed “attack weapons.” The Paris Air Show called on the Israelis to remove their weapons displays, to which the Israelis responded in the negative. Thus, the black partition you see in the picture above were set up, covering the Israeli display from view. The legend, written in yellow over the black, reads: “Behind these walls are the best defense systems used by many countries. These systems are protecting the state of Israel these days. The french (sic) government, in the name of discrimination, is trying to hide them from you!”