LONDON (Bloomberg) — Airbus SAS, the world's largest plane-maker, posted a sixfold increase in first-half aircraft orders, allowing the company to pull ahead of Boeing Co. in new contracts for the first time in a year.The plane-maker won 680 firm purchase agreements in the six months through June, Toulouse, France-based Airbus said yesterday in a statement. That compares with 117 orders a year earlier. The contracts included orders for 425 planes received at last month's Paris Air Show, plus 88 others gained in May and June.

The orders gap with Boeing has narrowed since a year ago, when Airbus's figures were one-quarter of its Chicago-based rival's. Airbus's orders in the five months through May totalled 210 planes compared with 417 for Boeing, which reports 544 net new firm orders for 2007 as of July 3 on its Web site.

"Airbus may be out on top with a greater number of orders in the first six months, but it is the quality of the orders and the potential available margin that really matters," said Howard Wheeldon, an analyst at BGC Partners Ltd. in London.

Airbus's single-aisle A320 model accounted for 287 of the orders in the first six months, including from Mandala Airlines, General Electric Co.'s leasing division and Kuwait-based Jazeera Airways.