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Airbus says reaches 200 plane orders, trails Boeing

France-based Airbus does not report net figures, which factor in cancelled orders over the period. Boeing had 518 net orders as of Aug. 1, according to its Web site.

It took Airbus three decades to top Boeing in annual orders, something it has done for the last five years, but Boeing has pulled ahead in 2006, helped by long-range airliners such as the 787, due in 2008, which are outselling rival Airbus models.

Airbus gave no year-on-year comparatives, but at end-June it had a cumulative 117 orders -- down 159 on the year-ago period.

Among recent deals was a tentative order from Singapore Airlines for 20 Airbus A350 planes and nine Airbus A380 superjumbos and one from German budget airline Blue Wings for 20 from the single-aisle A320 series.

Airbus is still ahead on deliveries, which is when planemakers receive the bulk of their payment for each plane, with 253 planes delivered through the first seven months of the year versus 225 for Boeing.

The Toulouse-based company is heading for a record 430 deliveries for the full year versus an expected 395 for Boeing.

Shares in EADS, which owns 80 percent of Airbus, closed up 2.58 percent at 24.24 euros versus Paris’s CAC-40 index, which gained 0.23 percent.

EADS last month posted a 6-percent rise in first-half operating profit but warned that design and manufacturing problems at Airbus could spill over to hit 2006 earnings.

The company said it expected full-year profit to come in at the bottom end of its previous forecast as it grapples with problems with the Airbus A380 superjumbo, redesign of the planned A350 mid-sized model and losses at its Sogerma maintenance business.