Combined with 787 Dreamliner orders announced Tuesday for Korean Air and Air Lease Corp., it’s the end of a long sales drought for Boeing, which didn’t log a single order in April or May following the global grounding of the 737 MAX in March in response to a deadly crash of the plane in Ethiopia, the second in five months.

The IAG 737 MAX order, if it’s finalized, would be worth $24 billion at list prices, though the London-based airline holding company likely negotiated a steep discount, said Teal Group analyst Richard Aboulafia. “But otherwise,” he said, “this is just what Boeing needed.”

In announcing the deal, IAG CEO Willie Walsh, a former 737 pilot, told the press that he wouldn't hesitate to board the plane. The numbers in the letter of intent are a strong endorsement as well: 200 737 MAXs would make IAG one of the largest operators of the plane. Southwest has ordered 249; FlyDubai, 237; and VietJet, 200.

The deal also represents further inroads for Boeing with a customer that's leaned more heavily toward Airbus. IAG, which is the parent company of British Airways, Aer Lingus, Vuelta and Iberia, currently has a fleet of workhorse single-aisle planes that’s almost exclusively Airbus A320s.

In February, Boeing beat out Airbus for a big wide-body deal with IAG, which placed an order for up to 42 777X aircraft, in part to replace British Airways' aging 747s.

Also on Tuesday, Boeing and Korean Air announced that the airline will add 30 787 Dreamliners to its fleet, inking a commitment to purchase ten 787-9s and ten of the larger 787-10s, with a book value of $6.3 billion, as well as to lease ten 787-10s from Air Lease Corp. ALC also committed to buy five 787-9s, which would cost $1.5 billion at list prices.

Tuesday’s orders followed a quiet start to the air show for Boeing, which watched Monday as rival Airbus launched a long-range version of its A321neo jet, the A321XLR, with orders from ALC and Middle East Airlines. IAG also announced an order Tuesday. With that plane, Airbus is trying to get a jump on Boeing as it decides whether to produce an all-new aircraft for that segment of the market, a project that has been provisionally described as the New Midsize Airplane, or NMA.

Prior to the grounding of the 737 MAX, Boeing had been expected to announce at the Paris air show that its board had decided to begin offering the NMA to potential customers, but the plane maker has been forced to concentrate its engineering resources on fixing the problems with the 737 MAX, which is its bestselling plane, with about 4,600 orders on the books.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration reportedly is preparing to start test flights this week to certify a revised version of a flight control software system called MCAS that’s believed to have been a primary cause of the two 737 MAX crashes, which killed 346 people.

 Boeing shares rose 5.4% Tuesday to close at $373.96.