China weighs ordering up to 500 Airbus jets during EU leaders' visit

By Siddharth Philip and Danny Lee

 

China is considering placing an order for hundreds of Airbus SE aircraft as soon as next month, when European leaders visit Beijing to celebrate the countries’ long-term ties, according to people familiar with the matter. 

Deliberations are underway with Chinese airlines about the size of a potential order, said the people, who asked not to be named discussing confidential matters. A deal could involve about 300 planes and include both narrowbody and widebody models, they said, with one person saying the order could range between 200 and as many as 500 aircraft.

 

Negotiations are fluid and could fall apart or take longer to reach a conclusion, the people said.

 

Airbus declined to comment. Representatives for the Civil Aviation Administration of China didn’t respond to a faxed request for comment.

 

The European planemaker rose as much as 2.3 per cent in early Paris trading. Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc, which makes engines for Airbus’s widebody aircraft, rose as much as 0.7 per cent in London. 

 

French President Emmanuel Macron and Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany are among leaders that may visit Beijing in July to mark 50 years of diplomatic relations between China and the European Union. Their countries are the two biggest owners of Airbus, and a high-profile deal with the planemaker would allow Chinese President Xi Jinping to send a message to US President Donald Trump over trade.

 

China and the US — the world’s two biggest economies — are at loggerheads over trade rules that Trump is determined to reset during his second presidential term. Should the two sides resolve their differences, Airbus rival Boeing Co. could potentially win big — the US planemaker is America’s biggest exporter and a jet sale was featured in a US-UK trade deal in May.

 

To date, however, Boeing has been penalized in China. In April, authorities in Beijing told airlines to stop taking deliveries of Boeing jets. Trade tensions and the crises that befell the 737 Max jet date back years, and have given Airbus an upper hand in what was once a carefully balanced market between the two dominant planemakers.

 

Widebodies would be a significant portion of a new Airbus order, the people said, with one person saying the A330neo, the planemaker’s smallest twin-aisle model, could win some sales. The number of twin-aisle jets in backlog for China’s state-run and privately operated carriers has dwindled, as Boeing has traditionally sold more in the market.

 

Should the order run to 500 planes it would rank as one of the biggest ever and certainly the largest for China, eclipsing an order for about 300 single-aisle Airbus jets made in 2022 that was then worth around $37 billion. Air India Ltd. inked an order for 470 Airbus and Boeing planes back in 2023 and another Indian airline, IndiGo, placed a record-breaking order with Airbus in mid 2023 for 500 narrowbody aircraft.

 

Boeing hasn’t won a major order from China since at least 2017 due to trade tensions and self-inflicted issues. In 2019, China became the first nation to ground the 737 Max following two deadly crashes. Trade disputes with the Biden and first Trump administrations also helped tilt Chinese orders toward Airbus. Then in 2024, Boeing suffered a quality crisis when a door plug blew out mid-flight in January.

 

Any deal would likely be carried out through China’s state-run aircraft procurement body, which typically negotiates on behalf of the country’s airlines.