Business News
Air China orders 20 Airbus passenger planes
Feb 11, 2010, 7:26 GMT
Beijing - China's flagship carrier Air China on Thursday said it had ordered 20 Airbus A320 passenger planes to expand its capacity for domestic flights.
The airline agreed to pay 1.63 billion dollars for the planes to be delivered from 2011 to 2014, Air China said in a statement.
The additional planes would increase Air China's passenger capacity by about 5 per cent and be used mainly to support its plans for an air hub in the south-western city of Chengdu and increase flights in eastern China, it said.
On Tuesday, state media said Airbus sold 78 planes, or 16 per cent of its global output, to Chinese carriers in 2009.
The 537 Airbus aircraft in service at the end of December accounted for 41 per cent of China's total fleet, the official Xinhua news agency quoted the European plane maker as saying.
With global economic recovery expected this year, Airbus is scheduled to deliver more than 100 new planes to Chinese airlines in 2010.
Boeing Co, Airbus' main global competitor, holds a share of over 50 per cent of the Chinese civil aviation market.
The Chinese government last month threatened to impose sanctions against US firms involved in the sale of 6.4 billion dollars worth of weapons to Taiwan. Boeing is among the US companies that may be affected by the punishment.
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