TOKYO-- ANA Holdings Inc., Japan's largest airline group, said
Thursday it would purchase additional planes from Airbus S.A.S, but
stuck to its mainstay provider Boeing Co. for its long-distance
widebody fleet.
ANA said that it would buy 23 Airbus A321 aircraft and seven
Airbus A320s, both medium-range aircraft. At the catalog price, the
deal would be worth Yen366 billion.
But Airbus has yet to break into the higher-priced widebody
segment, with the carrier saying it will buy 14 Boeing 787
Dreamliners, despite the recent high-profile problems with the
revolutionary aircraft, along with 26 Boeing 777 widebody jets that
are the mainstay for most airlines. Of those, 20 will be the new
generation of 777 aircraft known as 777X. The Boeing purchases
would be worth Yen1.36 trillion.
Worth $16.5 billion, ANA said that order for 70 aircraft was its
biggest ever.
Last October, Japan Airlines Co. broke with tradition by
announcing a $9.75 billion order for 31 widebody A350 jetliners
carrying a catalog price of Yen950 billion, with an option to buy
25 more of the long-distance planes.
The JAL decision was considered a major victory for the European
Airbus group, which had for years trying to break into the
lucrative Japanese market.
Write to Yoshio Takahashi at yoshio.takahashi@wsj.com
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