Saudis Announce Order For 28 Jets To Be Built By Boeing For $5 Billion

Saudi Arabian Airlines announced Sunday a longawaited order for 23 of the new Boeing Co. 777 twinjets and five 747 jumbo jets in a deal worth $5.2 billion, Boeing said.

Saudi Arabia’s order, part of a $6 billion deal originally announced by President Clinton, includes one more 777 twinjet than reported earlier in the month.

Deliveries are scheduled to begin in 1997 after Saudi Arabia chooses engines for the planes.

It is the second-largest 777 order by an individual customer since the program’s launch, according to a statement issued by the Seattlebased Boeing Co.

The purchase first was announced in February 1994 when Clinton said the Saudis would buy $6 billion in new jets from two U.S. firms - Boeing and St. Louis-based McDonnell Douglas Corp. - rather than Europe’s Airbus Industrie. But the deal was stalled, reportedly by falling oil prices that made it difficult for Saudi Arabia to pay for the jets.

Most of the $6 billion Saudi contract was expected to go to the Boeing Co., with McDonnell Douglas filling the rest of the order, Commerce Secretary Ron Brown said earlier this month. He said then that financing from the ExportImport Bank had been wrapped up for more than a year.

The McDonnell Douglas share of the deal, worth about $2 billion, was to include an order for 29 of its 150-passenger MD-90 airliners and four orders for freighter versions of its three-engine MD-11 jetliners, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month.

Saudi Arabian Airlines officials are placing the new orders as they begin modernization of their fleet in preparation for a planned privatization of the carrier, the newspaper reported.

“We are extremely pleased to have received this share of the total order placed by Saudi Arabian for its fleet renewal,” Frank Shrontz, chairman and chief executive officer of the Boeing Co., said in a statement issued Sunday.

Boeing said the Saudis’ overall plan is estimated at $7.5 billion in dollars figured at the time of delivery.

There have been 167 orders for the 777 and 1,167 for the 747 to date, Boeing said.

The 777, biggest twin-engine jet in the world, completed its first commercial flight June 7 for United Airlines from London to Washington. United, which participated with Boeing in development of the plane, has purchased 34 of the jetliners for some $4 billion. The planes sell for between $122 million and $167 million, depending on the features.