American Airlines orders 460(!!!) new narrowbodies

[Erik H. Bakke]

Split between 200 Boeing 737/737RE and 260 A320/A320NEO

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles...irbus-and.html

And a very large number of options and purchase rights, as well.

[Mike W]

What's the go with Boeing? Is there a more ponderous, more bureaucratic organisation than this? (outside of governments of course). This was their order to lose and they lost more than half of it. I hear whispers that they still struggle internally with the intergration of former McD execs and if that former culture is entrenched, then they are doomed.

This (AA) former exclusive Boeing customer and one from within their own country to boot. They mucked about for eons trying to decide what to do with the new engine or new plane decision on the 737 until Airbus cut their grass pretty much everywhere. What's next? Delta, US Air, good grief probably even Qantas and Virgin Australia. Southwest? Or will the other narrow body manufacturers steal that customer?

AA say that one manufacturer wouldn't be able to satisfy their requirements alone. Is tis due to availability? Airbus are already committed to hundreds of 320NEO's ordered barely over the past couple of months. Next thing there will be an Airbus facility in the US (paid for by Southern State's governments) and the slippery slide for Boeing will be all but complete.

I haven't even begun to rant about the 787 and Boeing's disasterous attempt to mitigate risk only for it to bite them worse than anything they could have/should have done in-house.

Yes, I, disppointed in and for Boeing.

[Kent Broadhead]

No, not good for Boeing, given that the A300 is AAs only Airbus product to date. It's fleet is mainly Boeing, but with significant McD (MD-8X - pre-Boeing takeover, of course) and A300 subfleets. Continuing to spread the risk across multiple suppliers with such a a large fleet seems sensible.

[Mike W]

The Airbus 300's are gone. They didn't hang around long after the tail fell off one and it crashed near NYC (I think).

Airbus blamed AA and AA blamed Airbus. I though that would have burnt bridges but obviously not. It turned out the NTSB blamed the pilot (or first officer) for "excessive rudder imput"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America...nes_Flight_587

There we go... from wiki

[Kent Broadhead]

They actually have more MD-8X than 737s, so moving to the 737 for narrowbodies (excluding 757 ) was a big thing. The A300s were in the fleet for over 20 years, and only retired in 2009. And I'd also forgotten about the F100 subfleet they had until 2004.

[Andrew M]

Now Airbus has the foot in the door, it's open slather for them with AA. I wasn't expecting this order for a few more months.

Boeing has really lost the plot!

787 - debacle
747-8 - failure
737 - Wait and see approach.

Reading http://aa.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=3286
100 x 737 - Current modesl
100 x 737NG - Whatever that is....

&

130 - Current A320
130 - A320 Neo

365 Options and purchase rights - This will mean good-bye Boeing 737's!

How many orders does the A320NEO have now ?

Would be close to 1300 NEO's ordered now.

[Sarah C]

I would love to see how AA are going to pay those huge bills!

[Grant Smith]

"American also will benefit from approximately $13 billion of committed financing provided by the manufacturers through lease transactions that will help maximize balance sheet flexibility and reduce risk. The financing fully covers the first 230 deliveries"

Guess you skipped over that part of the article?

[Andrew M]

Reading the whole article... Appears that Boeing have Options as well

"options and purchase rights for additional aircraft from both manufacturers through 2025"

Sarah - Yes I agree!!! Given they are making loss after loss... but see the post above mine