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| An Air France Airbus burns after overshooting the runway while landing at Toronto's Pearson International Airport in a storm August 2, 2005. |
Posted on 05/06/2006 1:20:07 PM PDT by Icelander
MOSCOW (AFP) - Russian flagship airline Aeroflot is to buy planes from Europe's Airbus instead of US-based Boeing, in apparent retaliation for US opposition to Moscow joining the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
"This is a clear signal to the United States not to put too much pressure on Russia in WTO talks otherwise many lucrative contracts and privileges could go to the Europeans," Yaroslav Lissovolik -- an analyst from the Deutsche UFG investment house -- told Saturday's edition of the Vedomosti business newspaper.
In December 2005, Vedomosti had said Aeroflot was considering buying 22 Boeing 787s, known as "Dreamliners".
But on Saturday it reported an anonymous official in Russia's presidential administration as saying that Aeroflot's board of directors had last month "decided that Aeroflot should buy the Airbus-350 liners".
Vedomosti estimated the cost of an Airbus deal at three billion dollars (2.36 billion euros).
But Aeroflot said it was too early to talk about the results of the tender since no contract had been signed.
"The results of the tender will be announced when we sign the contract. We haven't done that yet," airline spokeswoman Irina Dannenberg said.
"For some time, Boeing was preferred. Now we are looking at offers from Airbus. We haven't chosen the planes yet," she added.
Lev Koshlyakov, Aeroflot's deputy chief executive, was quoted by Interfax news agency on Saturday as saying: "The main shareholder -- the state -- has the last word and there has been no instruction from the state to the company."
The Russian government holds a 51-percent stake in Aeroflot.
Vedomosti said Aeroflot had delayed announcing its decision after an Airbus A320 passenger jet belonging to Armenia's Armavia airline plunged into the Black Sea on Wednesday, killing all 113 people on board.
Moscow has already signed a bilateral agreement with the European Union to pave the way for it to join the WTO but it has yet to clinch such an agreement with the United States.
Washington has expressed concern over software, music and video piracy in Russia, as well as agricultural subsidies, import tariffs and rules on the establishment of foreign banks.
Sadly, this would be consistant with a larger trend.
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| An Air France Airbus burns after overshooting the runway while landing at Toronto's Pearson International Airport in a storm August 2, 2005. |
The Boeing-Airbus rivalry continues...
Nothing to worry about. Russia will end up buying Boeing.
Most of this is posturing, and Europe and Asia do a lot of posturing. In the end, the decision will either be made on business grounds, in which case Boeing will be selected, or political grounds, in which case Boeing will still be selected.
Nobody wants to be tied to a decision to buy Airbus for political reasons, only to have some of those planes crash and burn. If Airbus is to win the contract, they had better produce a lot of guarantees. The Boeing aircraft are still the most sound from a business vantage point.
They're pouting over what Cheney said about them.
land a 777 too far down a slick runway and the same thing would happen.
The Russian's should be embarrased to be buying an airbus crashliner instead of building their own.Airbus planes have had a bad safety record in the past year.
"This is a clear signal to the United States not to put too much pressure on Russia in WTO talks otherwise many lucrative contracts and privileges could go to the Europeans,"
Ha! They're the losers, not us. Which would you rather fly in - A Boeing or an Airbus?
"They're the losers, not us. Which would you rather fly in - A Boeing or an Airbus?"
Boeing here, but I'd take either one over an Ilyushin or Tupolev! /scary Soviet-era junk.
You are wrong. The 777 would not handle the same way as an AB.
At present Boeing is out discounting Airbus and the 777 and 787 are very competitive. But when Boeing isn't discounting heavily they are usually not very competitive. Airline A1 might buy a dozen 777's today on very agreeable terms. But in a few years should they decide they need more - they can't count on Boeing to maintain their discounted pricing at that time, unless they buy options - but you can only buy options so far into the future.
If at that time Boeing is asking $200,000,000 each and offering undesirable delivery slots, you are stuck. You either end up buying planes you can't afford (which is what the majors did in the late 90's) or you end up going elsewhere and breaking down a common fleet.
With Airbus, you can pretty much count on pricing and support consistency for the life of the fleet.
A good public example is when Frontier decided to buy more 737's - the terms Boeing brought to the table in terms of pricing and delivery were not worthy of serious consideration. Boeing said take it or leave it... and guess what they did.
Boeing will swing from extreme to extreme, Airbus is pretty consistent. I will take consistency.
that had nothing to do with airbus per se..also everyone walked away from that crash
Good we dont want our superior planes(Boeing)which has a much longer range used for Russian awacs.
The issue here was not the airplane... it was the ravine and the pilot who should have gone around.
Aerofloat is one of the most unsafe airlines in the world (some turd world country may have them beat, but I don't know which one). It is only apporpriate that they buy the most unsafe aircraft to go with their reputation.
If the dems had their way Boeing would go out of business
it is not the most unsafe airplane in the world. get your facts straight:
http://www.geocities.com/khlim777_my/ashowsafe1.htm#Which%20is%20the%20safest%20airplane?
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