An Airbus A350 XWB is seen during the 15th Dubai Airshow in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, on Nov. 14, 2017. The 15th Dubai Airshow is held from Nov. 12 to Nov. 16. (Xinhua/Zhao Dingzhe)
by Xinhua writer Tang Peipei
DUBAI, Nov. 15 (Xinhua) -- EgyptAir signed Wednesday a big deal to buy 21 Boeing and Airbus planes from U.S. AirCap corporation, EgyptAir chairman described them as "the largest deal in EgyptAir history."
In addition, Airbus and Pan-American Indigo Partners' four portfolio airlines have signed Wednesday a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the purchase of 430 additional Airbus A320neo family aircraft, marking the European aircraft carrier's largest single announcement ever, Airbus said in an e-mailed statement.
The purchase commitment, comprised of 273 A320neos and 157 A321neos worth 49.5 billion U.S. dollars at list prices, was announced at the Dubai Airshow by Bill Franke, Managing Partner of Indigo Partners, and John Leahy, Airbus Chief Operating Officer-Customers.
Wednesday saw two enormous aircraft purchase orders for both Airbus and Boeing, in one of the most record-breaking days in recent aviation business history, Dubai Airshow organizer F&E Aerospace said in an e-mailed statement on Wednesday.
Airbus revealed its largest single announcement ever Wednesday, a 49.5 billion U.S. dollars deal with U.S. private equity firm Indigo Partners to purchase 430 aircraft in its A320neo family, described as Airbus' largest ever single announcement.
Meanwhile Boeing inked a 27 billion dollars deal with Dubai's government-controlled low-budget carrier flydubai for 225 aircraft in its 737 MAX family, the largest-ever single-aisle jet order, by number of airplanes and total value, from a Middle East carrier.
With the Airbus order, Indigo Partners, a U.S.-based private equity fund, has doubled its existing order of 427 A320 family aircraft.
The fund owns four ultra low cost airlines, amongst which the new fleet will be shared as follows: Wizz Air (Hungary) 72 A320neo, 74 A321neo; Frontier Airlines (USA) 100 A320neo, 34 A321neo; JetSMART (Chile) 56 A320neo, 14 A321neo, and Volaris (Mexico) 46 A320neo, 34 A321neo.
AerCap is also behind a leasing deal to provide EgyptAir with six Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft, which will start operating in 2019.
AerCap is the world's largest lessor of the Airbus A320neo; and the largest customer of the Boeing 787, with 116 on order and owned.
Increasing demand for air travel will push jetliner sales to more than 34,000 worldwide in the next 20 years, according to Airbus's 2017 global market forecast. Almost three-quarters of that will be single-aisle models, the company said.
The UAE Ministry of Defence also announced a 250 million dollars purchase deal for five Airbus CN295 tactical airlifter aircraft.
