Rebounding European aircraft company Airbus had reason to celebrate last week at the Dubai Air Show as they sold more than $28 billion worth of orders for planes, including their latest and greatest A380 double-decker super-jumbo airliner, with the most ostentatious sale going to Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal.

The world's 13th-wealthiest man bought one of the brand new $300 million A380s for ... himself as a kind of flying palace in the clouds replacing his aging personal 747. CNN had a rundown of the deals that totaled as much as $100 billion altogether.

Other multi-million deals signed by airlines including Emirates Airline, DAE Capital, Qatar Airways and Air Arabia are expected to top $80 billion. Airbus earned the largest windfall, securing $28 billion in commitments, followed by Boeing.

"These are the largest deals for both Boeing and Airbus from these Middle Eastern Airlines," says Michael Burns, transportation analyst from Booz Allen Hamilton. "Rather than simply re-equipping, they are actually growing for new capacity. So they're ordering lots of new jets very quickly."

The new hubs in the Middle East are creating an impact on air traffic around the world, he adds. "They are taking traffic from all the regional centers in Europe, and funneling them into Asia, Australia and areas like Pakistan. And that means airlines are obviously having to build up capacity. They are expecting to see major growth over the next decade," he says.

Middle Eastern carriers are also starting to lease aircraft in addition to buying them outright, which further allows them to expand more rapidly.

Some of the deals signed at the show(read more)

This past weekend Boeing unveiled its 787 family (symbolically on 7/8/07), but it isn't flight worthy quite yet, as Boeing plans to being flight testing in September and prove it ready for commercial use in just eight months (the shortest test-flight program in the company's 90-year history) and delivery of the first plane in May 2008. The 787 is Boeing first new jetliner since 1995 and, with 677 already on pre-order, its most successful ever. But with so many orders, new customers shouldn't expect Boeing to work through their backlog of planes until 2015, leaving a couple of years worth of gap for the Airbus A350, planned for introduction in 2013, to presumably pick up where Boeing might leave off.

Likewise, with demand booming, suppliers can't keep up either. A shortage of the specialized bolts that hold the airplane together (a high-priority goal to say the least) has tripped up Boeing's meticulous production planning with concerns about meeting the already higher-than-expected demand. It is believed it could take six months for the bolt suppliers to catch up, but Boeing believes they should have enough on hand to keep production moving, fully aware that, any announcement of a production delay could significantly hurt Boeing's now-lofty stock price.

While Boeing is facing a few minor setbacks, Airbus is continuing to face far harsher problems. First the design of A350 didn't meet expectations, which required a remodel that drastically set back the calendar. Then, just as Airbus was gaining credibility with customers, issues with getting jet engines from General Electric arose because GE has an exclusive agreement with Boeing for the 777, which directly competes with the largest version of the A350.(read more)