European plane maker Airbus won a Chinese order Friday for 20 of its A330-300 wide-body jets, its second large deal with a Chinese carrier in as many months.

The order, announced during a visit to France by Chinese Vice Premier Zeng Peiyan, is valued at more than US$2 billion based on catalog prices.

Airbus said that deliveries of the aircraft, which are destined for Shanghai-based China Eastern Airlines Co., would start in the first quarter of 2006. No decision has been taken on which engines will be used on the planes.

Back in April, China's largest carrier, China Southern Airlines Co., signed a deal for 21 narrow-body A320 and A319 jets.

The deal came only days after US low-cost carrier JetBlue Airways Corp. announced it would exercise options to purchase 30 new Airbus jets.

The Chinese and JetBlue orders will provide a major boost to Airbus's 2004 order book, which the jet maker announced Thursday stood at 73 jets at the end of May. Airbus has said it expects to receive orders for a total of around 250 jets this year.

Despite a rebound in traffic levels over the past year, top carriers in the United States are still struggling to recover from the civil aerospace crisis that followed the Sep. 11, 2001 attacks.

European airlines are coping better but are not expected to order large numbers of planes this year amid cutthroat price competition and high fuel prices.

As a result, Airbus and its US rival Boeing have turned their attention to Asia, where the market is bouncing back sharply from 2003 levels that were depressed by the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).

The fast-growing Chinese market is the most promising in Asia.

Boeing signed a deal with Chinese parts suppliers Thursday that could be worth several hundred million dollars and said it hoped to win Chinese orders for its new 7E7 Dreamliner jet this year.

Airbus has said it is in discussions to sell its double-decker A380 super-jumbo to Chinese airlines. On Friday, it announced subcontracting projects worth US$100 million, which for the first time would involve Chinese firms in producing components for the A380.

"China is a less mature market," said Steve East, an analyst at CSFB in London. "Looking forward, Asia is where a lot of the capacity growth will come from."
 
(Shenzhen Daily June 14, 2004)