Boeing snubbed as airline places record Airbus order

Saudia Group, owner of Saudia airline and budget carrier flyadeal, has placed a surprise order for 105 Airbus planes just months after Boeing had been tipped to win the contract.

The group ordered the narrow-body aircraft on Monday, marking a bounce-back for European planemaker Airbus, with the order estimated to be worth close to $19 billion.

Ibrahim Al Omar, Saudia Group’s director general, described the order for 12 A320neo and 93 A321neo single-aisle aircraft as the largest in the country’s history.

The state-owned group said Saudia would be receiving 54 of the A321neo jets, while flyadeal would acquire 12 A320neos and the remaining A321neos.

Airbus does not publish prices, but the A321neo was worth close to $130 million each at list prices released in 2018. Flyadeal CEO Steven Greenway said Saudia got the order at a discount, as is typical in the industry.

The latest announcement unexpectedly leapfrogged a possible order from Boeing, whose presence was muted.

In November, Saudia Arabia’s newest airline Riyadh Air said it was weeks away from placing a large narrow-body order, which Bloomberg News reported involved the Boeing 737 MAX.

Months later, no such order has surfaced, and Monday’s announcement placed Airbus firmly in the spotlight.

“What happened was the media three weeks later spent every hour of every day writing negative stories about commercial aviation,” Riyadh Air CEO Tony Douglas told Reuters on Monday.

He said he was not referring only to the latest crisis at Boeing after a panel tore off a 737 MAX 9 in January.

“The last thing I want to do is present my good news and have it in a context of things that are going on elsewhere, which are not quite as positive,” he said, “Be it Airbus can’t deliver on time (or) Boeing is having some technical problem.”

Saudia plans to expand rapidly over the next seven years as part of Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s Vision 2030 programme to wean the kingdom off its oil dependence. Tourism is a key pillar of the diversification strategy.

Douglas declined to be drawn on future fleet decisions. “We will (maintain) the strategy to stay as split (between suppliers) as we possibly can,” he said.