New deals, old deals and deals gone bad
Published 11:35 am Thursday, March 27, 2008
Whew. There’s a lot happening on the aerospace front this Thursday.
For travelers, this has not been your week. American Airlines continues today to inspect its MD-80 aircraft, canceling 132 flights Thursday after canceling 318 flights yesterday.
American isn’t the only airline grounding flights today. Delta also will scrap 275 flights through Friday.
In an article today, the L.A. Times puts into perspective the woes that U.S.-based carriers face.
These flight cancellations/inspections come a week after Southwest grounded some of its Boeing Co. 737s after missing several safety inspections on the jets. The FAA has fined the airline $10.2 million.
Congress is wading into the mess, calling for hearings next month with the agency.
New orders
Boeing has won orders for three 737s from Turkmenistan Airlines. The jetmaker also updated its orders and deliveries Web site to show it has received 286 orders this year.
Airbus picked up an order for 10 of its A330 aircraft from AirAsia X.
Also new today, the founder of JetBlue announced that he plans to launch a new discount airline in his native country of Brazil.
Newly confirmed but previously announced deals
EADS and the British government finally inked a $26 billion aerial refueling tanker deal. Britain had selected EADS’ A330 tanker more than two years ago but the two hadn’t come to terms over funding.
EADS, together with Northrop Grumman, won a $35 billion deal from the U.S. Air Force for a tanker based off the same Airbus A330 jet. Boeing, which withdrew from the competition in Britain, is protesting its U.S. Air Force loss to the duo. (More to come on the tanker …)
Finally, in the “deals gone bad” category, EADS says it has backed away from a deal to sell its plants in Germany. The European aerospace company had hoped to sell the sites as part of a restructuring program it launched when Airbus cost its parent company billions of dollars from delays to its A380 super jumbo jet program.
EADS needs to come up with the cash to fund development of Airbus’s A350 XWB, a mostly composite material jet expected mainly to challenge Boeing’s 777 with some overlap with Boeing’s delayed 787 Dreamliner.
Tom Enders, chief executive of EADS, said the company will continue its restructuring plan.
“There will be no turning back. Our site divestment and partnership objectives are part of a long-term business strategy to which we are fully committed. What drives our schedule is the A350 timetable. We are launching the necessary investments to secure the timely entry into service of the A350 with our customers,” Enders said.
The company’s stock got a boost on the European market late Thursday on talk that China may be interested in building a stake in EADS.
