China considers ordering hundreds of Airbus jets in major deal: Sources

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

Deliberations with Chinese airlines are under way about the size of a potential order, said the people.

A deal could involve about 300 planes and include both narrow-body and wide-body 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 did not respond to a request for comment.

French President Emmanuel Macron and Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany are among leaders who 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 Mr Trump is determined to reset during his second presidential term.

Should the two sides resolve their differences, Airbus rival Boeing could potentially win big – the US planemaker is America’s biggest exporter and a jet sale was featured in a US-Britain trade deal in May.

To date, however, Boeing has been penalised in China.

In April, the 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.

Wide-bodies 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 the 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 US$37 billion (S$47.7 billion).

Air India 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 narrow-body aircraft.

Boeing has not won a major order from China since at least 2017 owing 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 towards 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. BLOOMBERG