By Tim Hepher and Eric M. Johnson
PARIS (Reuters) -Airbus is set to complete a rapid-fire trio of aircraft order wins at the expense of rival Boeing on Thursday with a deal to supply all or most of a requirement for dozens of narrowbody jets to Air France-KLM, industry sources said.
Airbus has secured an order for A321 single-aisle jets from Dutch subsidiary KLM, the sources said, confirming an advantage first reported by Reuters last week, and is favoured to grab at least one of two Transavia budget units, they said.
Neither planemaker agreed to comment.
Air France-KLM, whose KLM and Transavia units currently rely on Boeing for narrowbody medium-haul jets, was not immediately available for comment.
Air France-KLM is expected to announce results of the keenly awaited contest later on Thursday, hours after Airbus seized a deal to supply two tranches of aircraft to Australia’s Qantas in a defeat for existing supplier Boeing.
Shares in Europe’s second-largest airline by fleet size extended gains and were up 3% in afternoon trading.
The Franco-Dutch group launched a tender earlier this year to renew and expand the medium-haul Boeing 737 fleet at KLM and the French and Dutch operations of Transavia.
It has said the deal could involve a firm purchase of 80 aircraft with options for another 60-80 in what would be the group’s biggest single fleet transaction.
Factors weighing in Airbus’s favour in recent months have included a gradual thawing of relations between French and Dutch arms of the airline group, which have different suppliers, and tensions over recent Boeing 787 delays, industry sources say.
The Air France-KLM deal continues a buoyant week for Airbus after Singapore Airlines threw its weight behind its efforts to break Boeing’s grip on the cargo plane market, with a tentative order for seven new A350 freighters.
However, Boeing is ahead on firm orders so far this year, as of the end of November, due to a sharp recovery in sales of the 737 MAX after it returned to service following a safety ban.
Boeing is expected to grab at least one more order before end-year and appears ahead so far in a narrowbody contest run by British Airways owner IAG, industry sources said.
Airlines are once again placing orders for jets as the industry starts to map growth beyond the pandemic and take advantage of lower fuel costs and emissions.
(Reporting by Tim Hepher, Eric M. Johnson; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
