Airbus is capitalizing on the ongoing grounding of its rival Boeing's 737 Max aircraft by gaining more orders in Asia this year. Since August, the company reportedly acquired more than 350 orders for its planes in Asia, overtaking Boeing in the region, which only got 16 orders for its jets over the past three months.
The European aircraft manufacturer's biggest win for its latest quarter came from an order by one of India's largest budget airline firms IndiGo. The Indian carrier ordered 300 units of the company's narrow-body aircraft in a deal estimated to be worth around $33 billion based on Airbus' list prices. The exact amount of the deal has not yet been made public and IndiGo likely acquired the jet below its publicly listed price.
Other big orders from Asian carriers over the quarter included new orders from Vietnamese low-cost airline VietJet Aviation and Philippine budget-airline Cebu Air. Airbus expects to close more orders in the coming months, leapfrogging its closest rival Boeing in the region in terms of total orders.
The orders that were made by the budget airlines are for Airbus' A320 neo and wide-body A330neo aircraft. The jets are in direct competition with Boring's twin-aisle 787 and 777 jets.
Despite its large orders, Airbus is currently facing its own issues with customers. India recently threatened to ground the company's A320neo jets unless the manufacturers install fixes on the plane's Pratt & Whitney engines by January next year. Indian operators IndiGo mentioned last week that it is willing to work with Airbus and the engine manufacturer to quickly remedy the issue.
Since the two tragic crashes involving Boeing's 737 Max planes that killed all of the flights' 346 passengers and crew members, the company has seen a number of canceled orders for its troubled aircraft as well as a steep decline of new orders.
Following the crash of Lion Air Flight 610 in October last year and the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 in March this year, global aviation regulators had decided to ground all of Boeing's 737 jets until investigations are concluded and fixes to the plane's autopilot systems are made.
Boeing has been very busy trying to upgrade the software on its planes over the past few months, but it still isn't clear when its planes will be allowed back in service. As of this moment, the grounding of Boeing's planes is still in force and regulators have mentioned that they will be taking their time in making their decision to allow the jets to fly again.
