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DALLAS -- While the hours count down to a final early morning board meeting of AMR corp, parent company of American Airlines, industry sources briefed on Airbus's North America strategy say the sales play by the European airframer is the opening salvo of the coming fleet replacement battles with US airlines that may eventually push Airbus production to record rates as high 60 A320 family aircraft per month after 2016 to meet the replacement demand. The announcement, now expected in Wednesday's early morning hours, is to split some portion of a 300 to 400 aircraft order between rivals Boeing and...

(CBS/AP) FORT WORTH, Texas - American Airlines is buying at least 460 new planes over the next five years and splitting the order between aerospace giants Boeing and Airbus. American's parent, AMR Corp., said Wednesday it will buy 260 planes from Airbus and 200 from Boeing. It will also take options and purchase rights for up to 465 additional planes through 2025.

FORT WORTH, Texas — American Airlines is buying at least 460 new planes over the next five years in what it calls the biggest airline order in history. And in a victory for Airbus, it's splitting the work between the European plane maker and Boeing. American said Wednesday it will buy 260 planes from Airbus and 200 from Boeing Co. It expects the new, better-mileage planes to provide much-needed savings on fuel costs. American's current fleet is among the least fuel-efficient in the industry.

ATLANTA (TheStreet) -- Three U.S. carriers are also the world's three biggest airlines -- United(UAL_), Delta(DAL_) and American(AMR_) -- but little indication exists that any of them have any particular desire to fly the world's biggest passenger airplane. Four years after the introduction of the Airbus A380, which can carry up to 600 passengers, 49 aircraft are flying for six international airlines, and orders have been placed by a total of 18 airlines. None are based in the U.S. Moreover, no U.S. carrier seems close to purchasing the A380, although Airbus spokesman Clay McConnell said that "eventually you will see...

Yesterday, to compensate for bending one of its prize exhibits at the Paris airshow (pictured [see below]) and having to stand down the A-400M display because of a "gearbox failure", Airbus has received an order worth $7.2 billion for 72 aircraft from Indian carrier GoAir, the latest in a series of Indian airlines scrambling to meet growing demand in Asia's third-largest economy. Today, however – according to the Financial Times (no link), China has rained on Airbus's parade, blocking a multi-billion dollar order for ten Airbus A-380s in what is termed "a sharp escalation of Beijing's protests against Europe's plan...

IAI, Airbus Military to develop airborne warning systems By YAAKOV KATZ 22/06/2011 Sources say the deal is expected to bring in several hundred million dollars in to Israel Aerospace Industries over the next five years. Israel Aerospace Industries and the Madrid-based Airbus Military signed a joint venture agreement on Tuesday for the development of small and versatile Airborne Early Warning and Control Systems (AEW&C). Sources said that the deal was expected to bring in several hundred million dollars in revenue to IAI over the next five years. IAI already offers customers AEW&Cs on Gulfstream G550 business jets that are in...

Airbus is trouncing Boeing in their race to be the world's biggest planemaker, claiming over $72 billion worth of orders and commitments at the Paris Air Show, where the popularity of its new fuel-efficient jets twice broke records for the largest order ever. Airbus CEO Tom Enders and AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes signed off Thursday on an $18.5 billion order for 200 of Airbus' new A320neo, which has proven to be the star of the aviation industry's premier event.

HE was one of Air France's "company babies": a dashing 32-year-old junior pilot - and a keen amateur yachtsman - who had been qualified to fly the airline's ultra-sophisticated Airbus A330 jet for barely a year. Yet despite his inexperience, Pierre-Cedric Bonin found himself responsible for the lives of 228 passengers and crew members on June 1, 2009, when the cockpit of his $190 million aircraft lit up with terrifying and contradictory alarm signals en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. While Bonin held on to the plane's “side-stick” controller and looked at his instruments in disbelief, his co-pilot,...

Cruising at 35,000 feet and nearly four hours into what seemed a routine overnight flight to Paris from Rio de Janeiro, an Air France cockpit crew got a stall warning and responded by doing what even weekend pilots know to avoid: They yanked the nose of the plane up instead of pointing it down to gain essential speed. Apparently confused by repeated stall warnings and reacting to wildly fluctuating airspeed indications, pilots of Flight 447 continued to pull back sharply on the controls—contrary to standard procedure—even as the Airbus A330 plummeted toward the Atlantic Ocean, according to information released Friday...

PARIS (Reuters) – Pilots wrestled with the controls of an Air France airliner for more than four minutes before it plunged into the Atlantic with its nose up, killing all 228 people on board, French investigators said Friday. The 2009 emergency began with a stall warning two and a half hours into the Rio-Paris flight and nine minutes after the captain had left the cockpit for a routine rest period. The Airbus A330 jet climbed to 38,000 feet and then began a dramatic three and a half minute descent, rolling from left to right, with the youngest of three pilots...

"Black box recordings from Air France Flight 447, which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean two years ago, revealed new details about the plane’s final moments. But the report did not assign blame or give an explanation for the crash, which killed all 228 people aboard."

What happened on board the Air France jet that crashed into the Atlantic en route from Rio to Paris? According to information obtained by SPIEGEL from the analysis of flight recorder data, pilot Marc Dubois appears not to have been in the cockpit at the time the deadly accident started to unfold. The fate of Air France Flight 447 was sealed in just four minutes. That short time span began with the first warning message on one of the Airbus A330 aircraft's monitors and ended with the plane crashing into the Atlantic between Brazil and Africa, killing all 228 people...

If you're afraid of flying, reading this post may or may not make it worse. On one hand it describes a story about the smell of a burning plane engine, the expressions of encumbered panic and the experience of coming to terms with death. On the other hand, everybody lives! Reuters photographer Beiwharta had just started to fall asleep on a flight with his family from Singapore to Jakarta when two loud bangs jolted him into a frightening reality. Based on Beiwharta's account of what came next, the activity on a crashing plane is just like you might imagine. The...

Russia to buy two presidential jets from European manufacturer Russia will purchase two Airbus jets for its leadership in a deal worth $235 million with a European aircraft manufacturer despite promises to help its own struggling aeronautical industry. The Russian government announced on Thursday it is buying two Airbus A319ACJs from EADS, headquartered in Toulouse, France, as well as building two Russian Ilyushin Il-96-300 airliners for President Dmitry Medvedev. The entire deal, including the building of four Mi-8 MTV-1 helicopters, will cost the Kremlin's property department 18.6 billion rubles ($652.6 million). Last year, Kremlin property manager Vladimir Kozhin said Russia...

BANGALORE: Boeing said it has a robust order book of 107 commercial planes in India. Out of this, 37 is for the 787 Dreamliner aircraft. The company did not specify the delivery timeline for the aircraft. However, the company will deliver the first of the 787 Dreamliner aircraft to Air India this year and the date of delivery will be formally announced at the Aero India show that begins in Bangalore on Wednesday. A miffed Air India had slapped a fine of $850 million for delay in the delivery. The company is betting big on India's defence market, estimated at...

A U.S. Air Force officer told Congress that both Boeing and EADS handled "correctly and professionally" a situation in which each received data from the Air Force about each company's bid to build a fleet of refueling tankers. Major Gen. Wendy Masiello also testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Air Force unintentionally sent Boeing and EADS the rival bids on compact disks. The reason for the hearing was to determine whether EADS is in a better negotiating position after one of its employees briefly viewed a summary of the Air Force's assessment of rival Boeing's bid, according...

WTO finds Boeing got billions in illegal subsidies, but how many billions? Boeing received billions of dollars in illegal subsidies, a World Trade Organization panel determined in a ruling released to the parties Monday. But the two sides offered vastly different accounts of the ruling, which will remain confidential for several more weeks, until the WTO releases official translations. Airbus said the subsidies amount to at least $5 billion, plus $2 billion more pledged for the future, and cost Airbus at least $45 billion in lost sales -- much more than the impact of illegal subsidies a separate panel found...

The Airbus Military A330 MRTT has successfully passed fuel to receiver aircraft using the Fuselage Refuelling Unit (FRU) for the first time – meaning that all of the aircraft's refuelling systems have now been demonstrated. In a three hour 10 min sortie from Getafe near Madrid on 21st January, the Future Strategic Transport Aircraft (FSTA) variant for the UK Royal Air Force conducted a series of “wet contacts” with two F-18 fighters of the Spanish Air Force. Contacts were successfully performed with both fighters at an altitude of around 15,000ft and at speeds from 250kt to 325kt. The FRU is...

US military's tanker deal: a saga without end Sun, Jan 23, 2011 AFP WASHINGTON - The battle between aerospace giants Boeing and EADS to supply new aerial refueling tankers for the US Air Force could drag on even after the military finally makes a decision on the contract, experts say. For the past decade, the Pentagon has struggled to launch a new fleet of refueling aircraft to replace the old KC-135 workhorses that date back to the 1950s, but the effort has been marred by scandal and bitter feuds. Two previous attempts to move ahead with a new tanker were...

Boeing (NYSE: BA) announced today that it expects delivery of the first 787 Dreamliner in the third quarter of this year. The new delivery date reflects the impact of an in-flight incident during testing last November and includes the time required to produce, install and test updated software and new electrical power distribution panels in the flight test and production airplanes. "This revised timeline for first delivery accommodates the work we believe remains to be done to complete testing and certification of the 787," said Scott Fancher, vice president and general manager of the 787 program. "We've also restored some...