Airbus Wins Up To $4.2 Billion In Orders By Rebecca Rayko, Associate Editor Farnborough, England - International Lease Finance Corp placed an order for up to 16 widebody and narrowbody jets from Airbus Industrie today in a transaction valued at $1.8 billion based on the manufacturer¹s list prices. ILFC, the world's largest lessor of new aircraft and the largest customer of Airbus, ordered 10 Airbus A340-500/600s (two A340-600s and eight A340-500s) and six Airbus A320 family aircraft. Deliveries will begin in 2002 and end 2006, a period that ILFC chief operating officer John Pluger says will be quite strong for the industry. "The 2002-06 time frame will be a period of strong growth for the industry, especially in the Asia-Pacific region, and we're well positioned for that," Pluger says. "Based on our internal estimates, we believe this period will be robust. The industry has reached a crescendo now and there will be softness in the next few years, but we¹re very bullish on a strong recovery in Asia," Pluger says. Although neither ILFC nor Airbus would verify the order's value, Airbus Commercial vice president John Leahy said ILFC would not be subject to the manufacturer¹s recent price increase. The A340-500/600s will be powered by the new Rolls-Royce Trent 500 engines, and Rolls has valued the deal at around $400 million. The A320 family will be equipped with either CFM56 or IAE V2500 series engines. Emirates at the same press conference firmed up an existing A340-500 order for six aircraft and placed options on a further ten. The deal is worth another $2.4 billion for Airbus and makes Dubai-based Emirates the largest Airbus customer in the Middle East. Emirates plan to use the A340-500s for non-stop flights to the US East and West coasts. The A340 program is the largest in the Airbus family of passenger jets, scheduled to enter service in early 2002. ILFC¹s Pluger says they continue to value Boeing¹s 777 product, but have not reached a decision on whether to order the Boeing widebody. Emirates says it is happy with its Boeing products but made its decision to buy the Airbus widebody on a commercial basis, not a political one.