Kingfisher Airlines has announced a preliminary $7.2 billion deal to buy Airbus aircraft including an extra 15 A350-800 XWB jets worth $3 billion.
LE BOURGET: Kingfisher Airlines on Wednesday announced a preliminary $7.2 billion deal to buy Airbus aircraft including an extra 15 A350-800 XWB jets worth $3 billion.
The order also includes five four-engine A340-500 planes, 10 A330-200 wide-body models and 20 single-aisle A320-family jets. The order is worth a total of $7.2 billion at list prices.
The deal generated a $1 billion deal for Rolls-Royce engines on the A340-500 and A350-800, on which it is the sole supplier.
Kingfisher had already ordered five of the original version of the A350 and has upgraded these orders to the planemaker's redesigned A350 XWB model. The new order for 15 A350 XWBs brings the total commitment for the aircraft to 20.
Airbus redesigned the A350 last year to boost flagging sales, dubbing its new version the Xtra Wide Body or XWB.
Vijay Mallya, the flamboyant liquor tycoon who heads the UB group and started Kingfisher Airlines in 2005 to broaden its beer brand, said the airline was building up capacity to operate non-stop routes between India and the US East Coast.
It already has five A380 superjumbos on order as well as a backlog of 86 A320 short-to-medium range single-aisle jets and 10 of the A330340 family, making it one of the largest single stakeholders in the Airbus order backlog by number of planes.
The A320 backlog includes 58 planes yet to be delivered to Deccan Aviation, a loss-making airline in which Kingfisher parent UB announced plans to buy a 26 per cent stake last month.
Mallya said Deccan would focus on operating the newly combined fleet of A320s, including serving neighbouring countries once it had received approval.
Mallya said compensation for A380 late deliveries was not part of the new plane order but said he was happy with the overall price of the new 50-plane order.
Airbus said the provisional deal would be converted into a firm deal in weeks.
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