Aircraft Industry: Airbus Ads Jab Boeing With Pinocchio Nose

Airbus A350

Airbus SAS accused Boeing Co. (BA) of making misleading claims about its planes’ performance and ridiculed its competitor with an advertising campaign showing a Boeing jet nose grotesquely elongated to resemble Pinocchio’s.

The ad, which appears this week in trade publications including Aviation Week and Flight, asserts that Boeing is “stretching the truth” in its own campaign to promote its aircraft. Boeing said it stands by its performance claims.

“They crossed a line when they started running specific numbers,” Airbus’s sales chief, John Leahy, said yesterday in an interview. “They’ve blatantly misrepresented the facts.”

Read more: Airbus Ads Jab Boeing With Pinocchio Nose - Bloomberg