Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Airline System, the national carrier, will start evaluating Airbus 350 and Boeing 787 aircraft as part of a fleet renewal plan.
"What we haven't looked at is the 787s versus the 350s," Chief Executive Officer Tengku Azmil Zahruddin said in an interview in Brunei yesterday. He declined to say how many aircraft were being considered.
Malaysian Air, which is replacing its ageing fleet, also needs new aircraft to tap growth as the airline industry emerges from its deepest traffic drop since the Second World War. The carrier faces competition from AirAsia and Singapore's Tiger Airways Holdings, which have placed combined orders for more than 200 planes.
The airline will probably be evaluating the Boeing and Airbus planes sometime next year and some of the prospective orders will be for replacement aircraft, Tengku Azmil said.
The carrier has 15 Airbus A330-300 on order, with options for 10 more, as well as six double-decker Airbus A380s due to arrive in 2012. The airline started taking delivery of 35 Boeing 737-800 planes this month.
Asia's economies will probably grow 7.9 per cent this year, more than double the pace in 2009, according to estimates by the International Monetary Fund.
Prospective A380 buyer
Meanwhile, Airbus, the world's biggest commercial airplane maker, expects to win a new customer for its double-decker A380 aircraft within the next six months.
The customer is from Asia and the initial order is "unlikely to be more than 10 planes," Christopher Buckley, executive vice-president for Europe, Asia and Pacific for the aircraft maker, said in an interview in Brunei yesterday.
China Aviation Supplies Holding Company (CAS) has signed with Airbus for a total of 102 aircraft of which 66 are new orders. The new orders comprise 50 A320 Family aircraft, six A330s and ten A350 XWBs.
The agreement was signed by Li Hai, President of CAS and Tom Enders, President and CEO of Airbus in Paris.
