Airbus on course for dollars 900m order

AIRBUS, the four-nation civil aircraft consortium, is set to announce an order worth dollars 900m from International Lease Finance Corporation of the US, writes Mary Fagan.

The order, thought to be for A340 and A320 airliners, will probably be announced next week at the Farnborough Air Show.

Airbus, whose partners are British Aerospace, Aerospatiale, Deutsche Aerospace (Dasa) and Casa of Spain, received 69 firm orders in the first half of this year, exceeding the total number of orders last year. The continued downturn in the aviation market meant that Airbus cancellations outnumbered new orders in 1993.

Edzard Reuter, chairman of Daimler Benz, Dasa's parent, said this week that Airbus had 55 per cent of the market for aircraft seating more than 110 passengers, outstripping Boeing and McDonnell-Douglas.

Airbus is expected to account for the lion's share of civil aircraft orders revealed at Farnborough, although Boeing is also expected to announce large deals.