IAG Places $5.2B Order for Eight Airbus A350-900s, Three Wide-Body A330-200s, and 20 A320neos

At the beginning of the week, the International Airlines Group (IAG) announced that they have placed an order for a total of 31 Airbus aircraft which are worth around USD$5 billion. IAG owns both British Airways and Iberia. The purchase is made up of 3 wide-body A330-200s, 8 A350-900s, and 20 A320neos. IAG said that the A350s and A330s will be used by the Spanish airline Iberia for its fleet modernization to serve new long-haul routes and the 20 A320neos will be used for their own fleet replacement.

Luis Gallego, Iberia’s executive chairman, said:

“This announcement is a confirmation of our commitment to global growth, though always under the premise that sustained profitability is the key criteria.”

Back in 2013 and 2014, 8 A330-300 aircraft were added to Iberia’s fleet as a partial replacement of its Airbus A340-300, and earlier this year, IAG ordered 16 new long-haul aircraft consisting of eight A330-200s to be delivered in 2015 and 2016, and eight A350-900s which are expected to arrive between 2018 and 2020.

All three of these aircraft make up the Airbus wide-body aircraft family and offer anywhere between 250 and 500 seats. IAG believes the A350 XWB, which came on the market in January of this year, to be the most modern and efficient aircraft family, and that the A330 wide-body aircraft has logged more than 1,500 orders from 110 operators to date. This most recent order puts the group’s Airbus aircraft order total at 450.

IAG also highlighted that A320neo family aircraft has the lowest operating costs of any single-aisle aircraft as well as providing 15% fuel burn reduction at its entry into service. This percentage is expected to go up to 20% by 2020. To date, the A320 family has received 11,800 orders and more than 6,600 aircraft have been delivered to over 300 operators worldwide.

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