Airbus Nears Smaller Emirates Deal - Bloomberg

Airbus Nears Smaller Emirates Deal - Bloomberg

Airbus SE is set to bring home a last-minute sale at the Dubai Airshow with Emirates, which is close to purchasing more of its A350-900 aircraft, according to people familiar with the discussions, in a compromise order after the airline said the larger variant of the widebody didn’t meet its expectations.

The Dubai-based carrier will take perhaps a dozen of the A350-900 model, said the people, asking not to be identified because the deal hasn’t been signed. They cautioned that an agreement could still fall through, and the outlines of a deal or the timing may change following a roller-coaster negotiation that has played out publicly during the expo.

Airbus said it doesn’t comment on speculation, while Emirates declined to comment.

Emirates already has 50 of the A350-900 on order. It had previously targeted an accord for as many as 50 of the larger A350-1000 model, but those hopes were dashed over the course of this week. The mood at the Airbus chalet turned gloomy after the airline’s president, Tim Clark, called the A350-1000 “defective” because of what he said are overly frequent maintenance cycles on the engines.

Airbus’s flagship aircraft is powered exclusively by Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc engines, and Clark said on Tuesday that the hot climate in the Middle East and high utilization of planes are less forgiving on modern engines like those powering the A350-1000.