Airbus SAS, a week after being accused by Boeing Co. (BA) of lacking the guts to develop an all-new airplane, hit back by ridiculing as inferior its arch-rival’s choice of parts on the first 787 Dreamliner shown to the world

“The aircraft we rolled out a couple of weeks ago didn’t have rivets from Wal-Mart, like the ones our competitors had at the time off their roll-out,” Tom Enders, the chief executive officer of Airbus parent European Aeronautic, Defence & Space Co., told investors at the annual shareholders meeting today.

“It’s a real aircraft

Ouch!!

Boeing and Airbus, which share a duopoly in the market for large commercial jets, have been known to trade the occasional jibe about their products and strategy, accusing each other of making misleading claims about their planes’ performance. Airbus had struck a more supportive note during the three-month grounding of the Dreamliner, only to resume a more aggressive stance as the A350’s maiden flight approaches in coming weeks

Enders’s comment was directed specifically at the plane that Boeing presented publicly on July 8, 2007, timed to coincide with the plane’s name — 787. The first 787 to actually fly didn’t come until 1 1/2 years later. Paul Lewis, a spokesman for Boeing, said his company had no comment on Enders’s remarks, made at a gathering in Amsterdam today.