Airbus Industries yesterday officially ended arch rival Boeing's monopoly on supplying EVA Air Corp (
EVA will buy two of the twin-engine A330-200s for around US$320 million and lease another six from GE Capital Aviation Services under the deal.
It is likely that EVA's acquisition of the medium-sized, 261-seat aircraft is in preparation for an expected opening of direct airlinks between China and Taiwan, said Timothy Ross, an airline analyst at UBS Warburg in Hong Kong.
EVA's 36-aircraft fleet is "reasonably short in the under 300 seaters ... the A330 would be the aircraft used on secondary mainland routes ... giving them the ability to offer more of a regional service to service less dense routes," Ross said.
Both EVA and competitor China Airlines Corp (
Ross estimates that it will take about three months for the two airlines to get services to and from China up and running once direct links are established.
EVA will use the A330-200s to replace eight older generation Boeing 767s and hopes to lure customers with the added creature comforts of the new aircraft that include larger seats and individual TV monitors for every passenger.
"We are going to use these new aircraft to raise the bar for increased passenger comfort on regional flights," said Tony Su, executive vice president in the corporate planning division at EVA Air.
Deliveries of the aircraft will begin in March 2003 and continue through to 2005.
Airbus CEO John Leahy is confident that the company's initial inroad into EVA's fleet line-up won't stop with the A330-200.
"We have quite a few aircraft in the Airbus product line that would fit into the EVA route structure," Leahy said, citing the A330-200's larger sibling the A330-300, the A330-200 freighter that will be launched this year, and the super jumbo A380-800.
"We have 60 firm orders [for the A380] and about 50 options, and we expect by the end of this year over 100 firm orders and probably an equal number of options," Leahy said.
The A380 can seat 555 people and has a range of 14,800km.
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