Boeing Co. (BA) shares continued to rally on Wednesday after air transport firm FedEx announced Tuesday that it had switched to Boeing freighters in response to the delay of the Airbus A380 Super Jumbo Jet.

During the past two days, shares of Boeing have risen nearly 6 percent to reach $85.45 at the close of Wednesday trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

Fed-Ex said Tuesday that it will order 15 new Boeing 777 freighters with an option to order an additional 15 more. Air-carriers who have ordered the A380 have seen a two-year delay for the planes. The next generation plane has been plagued by an electrical wiring production bottleneck.

The FedEx announcement on Tuesday is the clearest example of how Boeing could benefit from Airbus delays in the highly competitive commercial airplane business.

Although we do not see this as a sign FedEx, or other air carriers, are abandoning Airbus, we do see it as evidence of Airbus's failing execution on the A380, Standard & Poor's Corp. analyst Richard Tortoriello said in a research note.

Tortoriello gave a buy rating to Boeing shares with a 12-month target price of $106 as he expects the firm to get more 777 and 747 orders in the short term.

Also on Wednesday, Boeing and South Korea announced that they had reached a deal for the purchase of four early warning surveillance planes with a value of $1.6 billion.

Shares in EADS (EAD) rose 2.8 percent to 21.33 euros late Wednesday following talk that Dubai could buy a 20 percent stake in the firm. During the last six months, EADS stock has fallen more than 30 percent on news of delays to the A380 and reports of difficulties with other Airbus programs such as the A350 jet.