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Qantas Orders 45 Boeing 787s

Posted on: Sunday, 18 December 2005, 12:00 CST

By Staff and Wire Reports

The Australian airline could buy as many as 115 Dreamliners.

Australian flagship carrier Qantas Airways said Wednesday it could order up to 115 new Boeing 787 Dreamliners in a deal that may net the planemaker at least $14.4 billion.

Chicago-based Boeing Co. said it is finalizing an agreement for 45 of the new passenger jets, with options for 20 more, plus purchase rights for an additional 50.

Qantas, which is moving to renew its fleet, will start taking delivery of the 787s in 2008.

Boeing lists the price for the 787 on its Web site as $125 million to $135 million, but airlines frequently negotiate discounts.

Components of the 787 are to be manufactured in Tulsa by Spirit AeroSystems Inc., which is adding jobs at its northeast Tulsa plant.

The deal means that Boeing pulls far ahead in its quest this year to sell more aircraft than its archrival Airbus, which also had been lobbying Qantas to buy its planes.

As of the end of November, Boeing had won 800 orders -- not including the Qantas order -- more than any year in nearly two decades, and more than the previous three years combined. Airbus sold 687 planes during the same period -- up from 370 in 2004.

Boeing said the deal with Qantas was an important development with a key customer for the aviation company.

"They are obviously one of the premier airlines in the world and obviously have been a very good customer for Boeing and have operated a number of our aircraft," Boeing spokesman Peter Conte in Seattle said.

"This is a very, very big commitment by Qantas to growth," Qantas Airways Ltd. CEO Geoff Dixon told reporters.

Airbus spokesman David Voskuhl expressed disappointment with the Qantas decision but said the "flagship of their fleet" would be the A380 superjumbo.

"We respect the airline's decision," Voskuhl said. "We would certainly have liked to win, but they have decided in favor of the 787 and we would certainly not criticize that."

The Airbus A350, a planned long-range competitor to the Dreamliner, is set to enter service in 2010, two years after the Boeing plane. Neither Qantas nor the rival aircraft makers indicated whether delivery schedules were an important factor in the decision.

The new plane orders announced Wednesday come on top of a multibillion-dollar deal to buy 12 new Airbus A380 superjumbo planes -- the world's largest passenger jet. Qantas will begin taking delivery of the A380s early in 2007.

Qantas chairwoman Margaret Jackson said the airline would fund the Boeing 787 purchases from the company's operating cash flow.

"This fleet plan will give us a modern fleet offering maximum flexibility, lower seat mile costs and greater fuel efficiency," Jackson said in a statement.

The announcement signals that Qantas will not begin flying nonstop between Sydney and destinations like London. The company had talked to both Boeing and Airbus about buying planes capable of making the flight without a refueling stop.

Qantas said it had sought tenders from Airbus and Boeing for ultra-long range variants of the Airbus A340 and Boeing 777 as part of its current fleet renewal plan.

"However, neither the B777 nor the A340 provide an economical solution to our desire to have some of our services overfly midpoint hubs," Dixon said.

"We will continue to talk to Airbus and Boeing on further developing the options for longer-range aircraft," he added.

Last week, Qantas announced its domestic budget carrier, Jetstar, would begin international flights by early 2007.

The Tulsa World Business staff and Associated Press writer Laurence Frost in Paris contributed to this report by the AP's Mike Corder in Sydney, Australia.

Source: Tulsa World

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