Paris air show: Airbus seals deals with big buyers after Boeing's MAX sale

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Airbus sealed deals with big buyers for its latest passenger jet at the Paris Airshow on Wednesday, battling back a day after a surprise order by British Airways' owner for rival Boeing's grounded 737 MAX jet.
Indigo Partners, the private equity firm of veteran low-cost airline investor Bill Franke, and American Airlines each signed up for 50 of Airbus's new long-range A321neo jet, although some orders were converted from deals on other models.
Airbus, which has not given a list price for the A321XLR, launched the new plane on Monday, aiming to carve out new routes for airlines with smaller planes and steal a march on Boeing's plans for a potential all new jet for the middle of the market.
The deals are a big vote of confidence in the European planemaker, a day after major customer British Airways owner IAG signed a letter of intent to buy 200 of Boeing Co's 737 MAX jets, a model that has been grounded since March after two deadly crashes.
Asked about the IAG deal, Franke, who struck the largest-ever plane deal by number of aircraft with Airbus in 2017, called the A321neo the most efficient single-aisle jet.
Franke's Indigo Partners signed a memorandum of understanding to buy 32 of A321XLR aircraft and to convert 18 existing A320 family jet orders to the larger model.

 The jets will be allocated to Hungary's Wizz Air, US carrier Frontier Airlines and Chile's JetSMART, in which Indigo Partners owns stakes. Industry experts estimate the deal for the 32 aircraft could be valued at around $4.5 billion, based on a slight premium to the A321neo's list price of $129.5 million, although most airlines get significant discounts.

Boeing records zero new plane orders in Paris, Airbus jumps ahead

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Airbus SE cleaned up on the first day of the 2019 Paris Air Show, locking in $13 billion in orders for new jets to zero for Boeing Co., and introducing a long-range narrow-body meant to deflate enthusiasm for its U.S. rival's potential new midsize jet.
The Monday haul for Airbus featured major orders from Air Lease Corp., the influential U.S. leasing company, which agreed to buy planes worth $11 billion before customary discounts, including the new A321XLR. Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. bought eight A330 wide-bodies with options for six more.
There’s room to run up the score, said Airbus Chief Executive Officer Guillaume Faury. While Boeing’s workhorse 737 Max, idled in March after two deadly crashes, languishes on the tarmac, Faury said the European planemaker is seeing "very strong demand" for its rival A320 family of single-aisle jets.
"As far as we are concerned, you should expect a very positive Paris Air Show with a lot of orders," Faury said in an interview with Bloomberg Television.A year ago, the tables were turned. Airbus, going through a jarring management transition -- fallout from a multi-year bribery investigation -- announced 431 orders valued at $62 billion at the alternating Farnborough air show in the U.K. That lagged Boeing’s commitments for 528 jetliners valued at $79 billion through the week last year.

 The Air Lease order in particular provided a vote of confidence in the A321XLR, a twin-engine jet that can travel 4,700 nautical miles, more than any other narrow-body on the market. The plane is positioned as a more fuel-efficient successor to Boeing’s discontinued 757, able to connect smaller cities that can’t support service by big wide-body jets.The model is also meant to take the wind out of the sails of Boeing’s planned “new midmarket airplane,” or NMA.