European aircraft manufacturing giant Airbus (NASDAQOTH: EADSY) got off to a very slow start in 2017. During the first 11 months of the year, it booked just 333 net firm orders -- roughly half the order intake of archrival Boeing (NYSE: BA). That left Airbus in danger of posting its worst full-year order total since 2009.However, Airbus inked a record monthly order haul during December, pushing it above 1,000 annual orders for the fifth time since 2011.