Vietnam's Bamboo Airways to buy 10 Boeing planes during Trump-Kim
summit
Bamboo Airways Chairman Trinh Van Quyet is seen at
his office in Hanoi, Vietnam
HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnamese carrier
Bamboo Airways will sign a deal with Boeing Co to purchase 10 planes on the
sidelines of this week's Trump-Kim summit, an airline executive said on
Sunday.
The carrier, which is owned by property and leisure company FLC
Group and made its first flights in January, placed a provisional order last
year for 20 Boeing 787 widebody jets worth $5.6 billion at list
prices.
"We will sign with Boeing a deal to buy 10 more Boeing 787s. This
is different from the deal signed earlier for 20 Boeing planes," said the
executive who declined to be named due to the confidentiality of the
matter.
"That means we will have ordered 30 Boeing 787s. The deal will be
signed during the summit," the executive said.
"This is a firm order
valued at nearly $3 billion," added the executive. Boeing had no immediate
comment.
Bamboo is currently operating 10 Airbus planes.
Bamboo is
aiming to open routes to the United States after the U.S. Federal Aviation
Administration declared Vietnam complied with international aviation standards,
in a move that would allow Vietnamese carriers to fly there for the first time
and codeshare with U.S. airlines.
U.S. President Donald Trump and North
Korean leader Kim Jong Un will hold their second summit in the Vietnamese
capital of Hanoi on Feb. 27-28.
Bamboo's first 787 is set to arrive in
the third quarter of 2020 and the airline is preparing to launch flights to the
United States from late 2019 or early 2020 with leased jets unless Boeing can
deliver them earlier, Bamboo's chairman Trinh Van Quyet had earlier told
Reuters.
"Direct flights between Vietnam and the U.S. will not only push
tourism activities, but also further facilitate bilateral trade and investment,"
he said. "We are receiving huge support from Boeing to deploy our flights to the
U.S."
Rivals Vietnam Airlines JSC and VietJet Aviation JSC also have
ambitions to fly to the United States, although the latter carrier has yet to
place an order for widebody jets.
VietJet is also expected to sign a
major jet deal with Boeing on the sidelines of the Trump-Kim summit, according
to sources familiar with the matter.
VietJet, while not government-owned,
increasingly uses state visits to showcase major plane orders balanced between
Boeing and Airbus SE. It signed a deal to buy 100 Boeing 737 MAX narrowbody jets
when former U.S. President Barack Obama visited Hanoi in 2016.
The
airline is likely to finalize next week a separate provisional deal agreed last
year at the Farnborough Airshow to buy another 100 Boeing 737 MAX jets worth
almost $13 billion at list prices, sources said on condition of
anonymity.
Abonner på:
Legg inn kommentarer (Atom)
Ingen kommentarer:
Legg inn en kommentar
Merk: Bare medlemmer av denne bloggen kan legge inn en kommentar.