US Airways Group Inc. plans to order at least 90 Airbus SAS aircraft valued at more than $10.7 billion to replace planes and add long-range jets, a person with direct knowledge of the sale said.
US Airways will purchase about 60 single-aisle Airbus A320 aircraft, eight wide-body A330s and 22 long-range A350 XWB jets, said the person, who asked not to be identified before today's announcement at the Paris air show. US Airways, the seventh- largest U.S. carrier, chose the Airbus planes over Boeing Co.'s 737 and 787 Dreamliner models after months of negotiations.
Newer jets would save money on maintenance and fuel and enable US Airways to fly nonstop U.S.-China routes as the number of daily flights between the countries more than doubles by 2012. The sale also is a victory for Airbus, which trails Boeing in orders of 300-seat jetliners like the A350.
US Airways ``needed to do something because a lot of their direct competitors have already ordered the 787,'' said George Hamlin, managing director of Airline Capital Associates in Fairfax, Virginia. ``They also gain the efficiencies of moving toward an all-Airbus fleet for their narrow-bodies.''
US Airways, of Tempe, Arizona, declined to comment on the order. Mary Anne Greczyn, a North American spokeswoman for Toulouse, France-based Airbus, didn't immediately return a phone call or e-mail seeking comment yesterday. Phone messages to Boeing after regular business hours weren't immediately returned.
Deliveries of the A320s would begin about 2010, the A330s in 2009 and the A350s in 2014, the person said. The A320s seat about 150 passengers, while the other two planes can carry about 300 people, depending on how they're configured.
List Prices
The 60 A320s carry a list price of $4.38 billion; the A330s, at least $1.32 billion; and the A350s, $5.04 billion. Airlines generally negotiate rates below list price when ordering multiple aircraft.
Airbus headed into this week's Paris air show with just 13 A350 XWB orders, compared with 584 for Boeing's Dreamliner.
A 787 order by US Airways ``would have been a bitter blow to Airbus,'' Hamlin said. ``This was one they could not afford to lose.''
Airbus, a unit of European Aerospace & Defence Co., needs 100 firm orders for the A350 XWB at the Paris show to signal that the planemaker is making a comeback, said Richard Aboulafia, vice president of consulting firm Teal Group in Fairfax, Virginia.
Order Modified
For US Airways, buying A350 XWBs is a modification to an order for 20 A350s that the carrier placed in November 2005. That transaction came in exchange for a $250 million Airbus loan that helped finance the merger of US Airways and America West Holdings Corp.
US Airways has 358 aircraft in its main jet fleet: 205 from Airbus, 148 from Chicago-based Boeing and five from Brazil's Embraer. The A320s will replace the airline's 55 Boeing 737- 300s, while the wide-body jets will enable the carrier to retire models including Airbus A330s and Boeing 767ERs, US Airways has said.
The carrier's twin-engine 737s date to the late 1980s and are its oldest aircraft, according to Airclaims, an industry database.
US Airways already had 37 firm orders for Airbus planes to be delivered in 2008 through 2010 and also has firm orders for 22 Embraer E190s. Those 100-seat jets will be delivered this year through 2012.
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