LE BOURGET, France – Airbus racked up more orders for its A350 XWB aircraft on Wednesday, striking back a day after U.S. rival Boeing Co. snagged the troubled jet’s original launch customer for its own 787 Dreamliner.
In announcements timed to make a splash at the weeklong Paris Air Show, Airbus landed orders for a total of 166 aircraft Wednesday, bringing its haul for the first three days of the event to 548 – worth a total of $75.7 billion on the basis of catalog prices.
Of the three-day tally, 358 aircraft were firm orders and 190 were commitments that are likely to be converted into firm orders in the coming months.
Russian airline Aeroflot signed a firm deal for 22 of the revamped A350 aircraft, and Airbus received commitments from India’s Kingfisher Airlines and Libya’s Afriqiyah Airways to buy another 56.
The deals agreed to Wednesday add to a big order from Qatar Airways earlier in the week for 80 of the planes, taking the total firm orders for the plane so far to 134. However, despite the flurry of deals at the fair in Le Bourget, north of Paris, that is still far behind the 634 orders for Boeing’s Dreamliner.
Airbus has been fighting an uphill battle against the Dreamliner to win customers in the lucrative commercial medium-size long-range jet market since it was forced into an expensive redesign of the aircraft by unhappy customers – resulting in the extra-wide-body, or XWB, model.
The changes have pushed back the first delivery date of the plane until 2013, years behind the first delivery of Boeing’s 787 due in May 2008, which is now sold out for delivery until 2013.
The most vocal of the critics was Stephen Udvar-Hazy, chief executive of Los Angeles-based International Lease Finance Corp., the launch customer for the A350 – which on Tuesday signed a deal with Boeing for 50 more Dreamliners.
That deal made ILFC, the world’s largest plane leasing company, the biggest customer for the 787 – the first commercial jet made of light, sturdy, carbon-fiber composites instead of aluminum – with 74 firm orders.
ILFC originally ordered 16 A350s, but those are on hold following the redesign.
Udvar-Hazy, who hinted Tuesday that ILFC would order more Dreamliners in the coming months, met Wednesday with Airbus Chief Operating Officer John Leahy. Leahy said Airbus and ILFC “are in discussions” about the A350 XWB.
Even Airbus’ newest customer, Aeroflot, whose deal for 22 A350s worth $3.2 billion at list prices confirms an earlier commitment to buy the planes signed in March, has already ordered 22 Dreamliners.
The Kingfisher deal for 50 planes is a memorandum of understanding worth around $7 billion at catalog prices, as is the Afriqiyah Airways deal for 6 planes worth around $1.6 billion. Afriqiyah was the first African airline to strike a deal for the plane.
Leahy on Tuesday dismissed suggestions that Airbus had been forced to heavily discount its prices for the A350 to lure back customers. He said the prices being achieved were comparable to those of the Dreamliner.
The tussle between Airbus and Boeing for customers for the A350 and the 787 is at the heart of the long-running rivalry between the pair. Boeing has announced $15.9 billion worth of orders at Le Bourget; however, almost all those are firm bookings.
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