Manufacturer Sees Continued Interest With Hundreds of Sales in the A320 Family

The Paris Air Show once again acted as a suitable backdrop for making deals, with Airbus flooding the newswire with all kinds of deals, from the bread and butter narrowbodies to its higher-end, long-haul A350.

Starting off the week Airbus sold a trio of A350 to Air Mauritius, bringing their fleet to 7 counting their 4 A350s already in service. The firm's collection of 4 A330s makes for a total of 11 long-haul Airbuses. The firm then sold 30 new A320neos to Saudi carrier flynas, bringing their total order book to 120 A320neos and 10 A321XLRs. The biggest fish early in the week was the sale of 500 A320-family aircraft for IndiGo, which set a record for Airbus and brought the carrier's total aircraft on order to 1,330.

As the Air Show went on, Australia's Qantas finalized an incremental order for 9 A220-300s, bringing its backlog to 29 narrowbody aircraft. After that, Philippine Airlines inked a deal of their own for the acquisition of 9 A350-1000s, building up their Ultra Long Haul Fleet project in an effort to expand its Manila-USA coverage. The firm's current fleet of 2 A350s has been busy, but Philippine Airlines wants to grow all throughout the East Coast and Canada.

Finally, Air India rounded out the pack with another considerable order for 250 aircraft, firming up a letter of intent signed last February. Their deal will see the delivery of 140 A320neo and 70 A321neo single-aisle aircraft, with another 34 A350-1000s and 6 A350-900s on top. Their order marks the Indian entry of the A350, with deliveries set to commence before the end of 2023.All in all, Airbus had a solid week, moving plenty of aircraft. It's somewhat murky as to exactly how much of it was merely announced after the close of the Paris Air Show, since some of the announcements sprinkled in amongst the deals were finalizations of earlier LoIs or older orders. Counting the official announcements, a rough tally would place their recent sales around 774 narrowbody aircraft and 52 widebody aircraft.

FMI: www.airbus.com