Amazon, GE, and Boeing Strike a Deal That Could Only Happen in Paris

It sounds like the start of a bad joke, but it isn’t. Amazon.com (ticker: AMZN),Boeing (BA) and General Electric (GE) all were at the Paris air show this week, and the trio struck a deal there on Tuesday. Amazon agreed to lease 15 additional Boeing 737 cargo freighters from GECAS, short for GE Capital Aviation Services.

Amazon’s logistics ambitions are well known, as it shifts into more of a competitor to FedEx (FDX) and United Parcel Service (UPS) than a customer.

“These new aircraft create additional capacity for Amazon Air, building on the investment in our Prime Free One-Day program,” says Dave Clark, senior vice president of world-wide operations at Amazon. “By 2021, Amazon Air will have a portfolio of 70 aircraft flying in our dedicated air network.” ( FedEx , for context, flies 700 planes.)

Amazon also holds warrants to purchase up to 39.9% of aircraft lessor Atlas Air Worldwide (AAWW). Plus, the e-commerce company is building out its own express delivery hub in Kentucky. That’s one possible reason FedEx decided to end its U.S. Express relationship with Amazon in June.

This one deal, however, isn’t major news for GE. While presenting to analysts in Paris, GECAS officials called the current aircraft leasing environment “challenging,” with too many lessors chasing business. But they remain upbeat about the future because they believe they have the right kinds of planes in their portfolio. Analysts have speculated that GECAS could be sold to raise money to fund GE CEO Larry Culp’s turnaround efforts. The company said it has no plans to sell.

The deal isn’t major news for Boeing, either. Boeing’s biggest news at the Paris air show was clearly securing an order for 200 737 MAX jets from British Airways parent International Consolidated Airlines (IAG.London). It is the first order for Boeing’s troubled single-aisle jet since the tragic crash of an Ethiopian Airlines flight in March. It signals—despite the intense scrutiny from regulators and customers—that the aerospace industry expects the plane to be fixed and to fly again in 2019.

The order “is a noteworthy shot in the arm for Boeing,” says Moody’s senior vice president and lead Boeing analyst Jonathan Root. “It underscores our belief in the long-term viability of the MAX program and our expectations for a full restoration of Boeing’s financial profile following the aircraft’s return to service.”

Even though all three companies made headlines in Paris, all three stocks are in very different places. Amazon is a Wall Street darling—every analyst covering the company rates shares Buy. Opinion on GE, meanwhile, is polarized, with bearish analyst predicting the stock will drop to $5 a share and bullish analyst predicting shares will hit $15. Boeing has been a great investment in the recent past, returning 26% a year on average for the past 10 years, 12 percentage points better than the Dow Jones Industrial Averageover the same span. But Boeing stock stumbled after the world-wide grounding of the 737 MAX jet in mid-March.

Stories like that don’t always overlap, but these did, at least for a day, in the city of lights.