Airbus landed a deal for a record 430 of its A320neo-family jets on Wednesday as U.S. investor Bill Franke raised his bet on budget airlines.
The preliminary deal, worth up to $50 billion, is designed to supply four airlines in which Franke’s Indigo Partners has stakes: Frontier Airlines, Mexico’s Volaris, Chilean carrier JetSmart and Hungary’s Wizz Air, reports Reuters.
The 80-year old Franke signed the agreement at the Dubai Airshow amid a flurry of dealmaking, as airlines take advantage of a recent slowdown in demand for new aircraft to negotiate competitive prices from leading manufacturers.
Bill Franke, the Managing Partner of Indigo Partners LLC, attends a news conference at the Dubai Airshow in Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Budget airline flydubai on Wednesday committed to buying 175 Boeing 737 Max jets, worth around $21 billion at list prices. Airbus said it expected to finalize its agreement with Franke in the coming weeks.
The two deals again underscore how budget carriers are rewriting the rulebook by combining bargain fares augmented by optional services and upgrades for which passengers pay additional fees.
The Franke deal also marks a dramatic swan-song for Airbus sales chief John Leahy, who is due to retire in the coming months after holding the job since 1994.
The 67-year-old Leahy has overseen the sale of jets worth $1.7 trillion at list prices and helped engineer a rise in Airbus’s market share to a par with arch-rival Boeing from just 18 percent.
This year, however, Airbus’s share of the two giants’ combined order tally has dropped to 35 percent as a rejuvenated Boeing management made advances in Singapore and elsewhere.
