Airbus SAS won an
order for 60 A320 planes from state-backed China Eastern Airlines Corp.
(670), less than two weeks after the European Union backed down in a
dispute with the government in Beijing over jetliner-emission levies.
China Eastern received a
“substantive” discount to the list price of $5.4 billion for the
single-aisle planes, it said today in a statement from Shanghai, adding
that Toulouse, France-based Airbus also agreed to take 18 regional jets
off its hands.
EU plans to impose carbon dioxide emission fees on
flights in and out of the bloc were suspended on Nov. 12 after
countries including China, India and Russia threatened retaliatory
steps. Airbus parent European Aeronautic, Defence & Space Co. (EAD)
had said the levies might cause China to refuse to take its planes.
“I
suspect there’s a message there,” said Sandy Morris, an analyst at
Jefferies International in London with a “buy” rating on EADS. “China
has been light on A320 orders for a while now and it looks like Airbus
held some production slots back until this was resolved. It’s called
looking after your customer.”
The A320s, due to arrive from 2014
to 2017, will be used mainly on domestic routes, according to China
Eastern, which last year switched an order for 24 Boeing Co. (BA) 787s
wide-body planes to 45 smaller 737s because of waning long-haul demand.
Regional Deal
The
airline will sell eight Bombardier Inc. (BBD/B) CRJ planes and 10
Embraer SA regional jets with have a book value of 1.5 billion yuan
($241 million) to Airbus, it said in the statement.
China was
pleased with the EU move to suspend the plan for emissions charges, Xia
Xinghua, deputy director of its aviation regulator, said Nov. 13. The
Asian country’s airline association said in June that carriers would
snub a deadline for filing emissions data and that the government would
support them.
Three calls to China Eastern’s offices went unanswered today outside regular office hours.
Airbus
Chief Executive Officer Fabrice Bregier said in September that China
was withholding signature on 35 to 45 wide- body A330 planes because of
the emissions dispute. A contract for those aircraft would have given a
“bigger signal” regarding current Chinese attitudes, Jefferies’ Morris
said.
Airbus, which has an A320 assembly plant in China, won an
order for 50 of the planes from the leasing arm of state- controlled
Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. in August.
China
and other nations had said the EU should wait for a global emissions
program being drawn up by the United Nations’ aviation agency rather
than push ahead with a regional plan.
The levies are designed to curb C02 output associated with global warming.
http://www.businessweek.com
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment