European Aircraft giant Airbus Industrie has cried foul over state-run Air India's decision to buy 50 Boeing jets, saying it was denied a chance to show off its new A380 superjumbo, as analysts said politics influenced the decision.
Airbus urged the Indian government to order a new tender after Air India approved on Tuesday the purchase of up to 50 Boeing planes worth US$7 billion, the US plane-maker's second big win this week.
Air India's purchase decision capped a year of high-profile lobbying by Boeing and Airbus executives and politicians from the US and Europe.
PHOTO: EPA
"We are not disappointed, but astonished. We were not given fair and equal treatment," Harwood Airbus Industrie vice president Nigel Harwood said.
He said he would write to India's civil aviation ministry seeking reconsideration of Air India's approval of the decision to purchase the craft, including the yet-to-fly B787 Dreamliner, and ask for fresh tenders.
Purchase of the Dreamliner, Boeing's vision of the next major trend in air travel, is subject to federal government approval.
"The B787 is still on the drawing board. No one knows its performance capability," Kiran Rao, chief of Airbus Industrie in India, said late on Wednesday.
"Delivery dates for B787 are still unknown. Airbus can't understand why the A380 was ignored when this was the only aircraft that shows profitability on long-range and ultra-long range routes," he added.
No opportunity
Harwood said Airbus got no chance to make a presentation on its double-decker A380, the world's biggest passenger plane which had its maiden test flight on Wednesday near Toulouse, France.
"We were not given a chance to make a presentation on A380, whereas Boeing made their case on B787s, which will not fly before 2007. That goes contrary to tender conditionalities," the Press Trust of India quoted Harwood as saying.
"Only Airbus could have delivered all the aircraft in the timeframe demanded by the state-run carrier in its own tender," Harwood said.
An Air India spokesman rejected Airbus' statements, saying while Boeing, General Electric and others made presentations, Airbus "at no stage made use of this opportunity."
Analysts, meanwhile, said the decision may have been influenced by politics, as India hopes it will lead to high-technology sales from other US firms and win US support on New Delhi's bid for a seat on the UN Security Council.
"India has made the United States happy with the Air India contract after it pleased the European Union last year with the Indian Airlines order," said professor Brahma Chellaney of the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi.
Chellaney said the deal was part of a strategy to present a picture of healthy India-US relations which have been growing in the last few years.
"Such huge contracts are decided at the political level and that's what has happened this time too," Chellaney said.
Air India said it wants to buy eight B777-200 LR, 15 B777-300 ER and 27 B787 Dreamliner medium-capacity, long-range aircraft. Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel said on Tuesday it would trust the company's board on which plane it wants.
Government steps back
"There will undoubtedly be much speculation as to why Air India chose Boeing over Airbus," said Elizabeth Mills, an analyst with Global Insight in Britain.
"The government has been keen to distance itself from the deal, arguing it has no involvement with the company, but the links India has with the US in terms of defense and more recently as a result of a new open-skies agreement may have had some impact," she said.
Mills and Chellaney also noted the choice of Boeing may be an attempt by India to balance relations between Europe and the US after domestic state-run carrier Indian Airlines gave Airbus the order to supply 43 aircraft.
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
INSPIRING: Taiwan has been a model in the Asia-Pacific region with its democratic transition, free and fair elections and open society, the vice president-elect said Taiwan can play a leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region, vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) told a forum in Taipei yesterday, highlighting the nation’s resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges. “Not only can Taiwan help, but Taiwan can lead ... not only can Taiwan play a leadership role, but Taiwan’s leadership is important to the world,” Hsiao told the annual forum hosted by the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation think tank. Hsiao thanked Taiwan’s international friends for their long-term support, citing the example of US President Joe Biden last month signing into law a bill to provide aid to Taiwan,
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
STATE OF THE NATION: The legislature should invite the president to deliver an address every year, the TPP said, adding that Lai should also have to answer legislators’ questions The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday proposed inviting president-elect William Lai (賴清德) to make a historic first state of the nation address at the legislature following his inauguration on May 20. Lai is expected to face many domestic and international challenges, and should clarify his intended policies with the public’s representatives, KMT caucus secretary-general Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) said when making the proposal at a meeting of the legislature’s Procedure Committee. The committee voted to add the item to the agenda for Friday, along with another similar proposal put forward by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The invitation is in line with Article 15-2