Boeing Vies For China Plane Deal

Boeing Co. said it’s competing against Airbus Industrie for aircraft sales to Chinese airlines valued at about $4 billion.

Chinese officials asked Boeing to make a proposal to supply the 100 airplanes of various sizes. Airbus submitted its proposal in April.

“We haven’t decided which company we will choose. It is possible we will buy some from Boeing and some from Airbus,” said Xu Dengying, deputy manager at China Aviation Supplies Corp., the government agency that must approve the purchases.

The two companies, which now produce more than 90 percent of all jetliners, are locked in a fierce fight for sales worldwide. China is a key market because it is expected to be the largest buyer of jetliners over the next 20 years, with expected orders of $110 billion.

The pressure on Airbus to land a big order intensified recently as Boeing became the exclusive supplier of aircraft to AMR Corp.’s American Airlines and Delta Air Lines Inc., two of the world’s largest carriers.

The new order is “like the final of the World Cup,” said Bruce Dennis, vice president of marketing at Boeing. “I’d like to see us win it all, but it probably won’t happen.”

A spokesman for Airbus at its base in Toulouse, France, said he had no comment, except that it was “the customer’s prerogative” to seek bids from Boeing as well as Airbus.

Airbus has had good luck recently with sales to China, helped in part by poor Sino-U.S. trade relations. China last April agreed to buy 30 Airbus jetliners valued at $1.5 billion. Boeing said it lost that order because China was angered by Washington’s threats to link trade with China more closely to human rights.

Because China centralizes aircraft purchases under China Aviation Supplies, it can use aircraft orders to emphasize the economic value of good relations with Beijing.

Boeing signed contracts for five 777 jetliners worth about $800 million last month when Vice President Al Gore went to China, indicating that relations had improved. Analysts expect Airbus to announce more orders from China when French President Jacques Chirac visits Beijing next month.

Boeing will deliver the proposal for the 100-plane order in the next couple of days.

Politics aside, Boeing may have an advantage in winning the order because it already controls about 60 percent of the Chinese aviation market, compared with about 15 percent for Airbus.