“We had a good airshow, better than many expected,” said Airbus chief operating officer John Leahy in a statement released a day before the biennial show ends, with overall sales down sharply on 2007.

The Airbus orders were for 15 aircraft worth more than 3.6 billion dollars, in addition to memorandums of understanding on another 18 valued at around 1.7 billion dollars.

The largest came from Ethiopian Airlines for 12 A350-900s worth 2.9 billion dollars, while Air Austral ordered two A380 superjumbos worth 655 million dollars.

Swiss-based charter airline Comlux placed a firm order for one Airbus Corporate Jet (ACJ) worth 75 million dollars.

Meanwhile, Airbus signed an MoU to supply Yemenia Airlines with 10 A320s worth 770 million dollars, and an MoU with Senegal Airlines for two A320s and two A330-200s valued at 670 million dollars.

An MoU was also signed with Nepal Airlines for one A320 and one A330-200 worth 258 million dollars.

Arch-rival Boeing received orders from the Algerian national carrier Air Algerie for seven Boeing B737-800s. The price was not disclosed, but it should range between 493 million dollars and 553 million dollars according to catalogue prices.

Boeing also confirmed an order for four B737s by the Algerian domestic carrier Tassili Airlines, valued at 228.4 million dollars.

Sales are sharply lower for the two companies that than in 2007, when they received orders and letters of intent worth around 75 billion dollars, mostly from Gulf carriers.

Show organisers said on Wednesday that orders by the next to last day have exceeded 13 billion dollars — way below 155.5 billion dollars in 2007.

Leahy warned that the aviation industry is still struggling to overcome the impact of the global financial crisis.

“Our industry is not out of the woods yet. There will be a difficult winter ahead of us,” he said.

“But with the deals we made in Dubai and the interest in our products that we saw here, spring may not be that far away,” he added.