Air France-KLM says narrow-body talks intensify, order may split

Bloomberg

Air France-KLM is deep in negotiations with Airbus SE, Boeing Co and engine-makers vying for a massive narrow-body order and plans to make a decision on suppliers within months, Chief Executive Officer Ben Smith said.
The deal will include at least 80 firm orders and 60 to 80 options, Smith said at an event in Paris. The purchase could include more than one supplier, he said. “We are looking at all the different medium-haul models from the two suppliers Airbus and Boeing,” Smith said. “We are hoping to make a decision in the next months.”
The European airline group, still working to shore up its finances coming out of the coronavirus-fed downturn, is at the same time moving forward to renew its fleet so it can improve fuel efficiency and lower carbon emissions. It said in July that it was in talks with Boeing and Airbus on a 160-jet narrow-body order.
The carrier group could buy as many as 120 of Airbus’s smallest passenger jet, the A220, Smith said. He was speaking a ceremony in Paris for the delivery of the first of the regional model that is part of an existing 60-plane order. Air France has options for 30 more A220s and purchase rights for 30 beyond that.
Air France will take about a dozen of the lightweight, carbon-fiber winged A220s a year, including six more in 2021 and 15 in 2022. They will be used on
regional routes, starting with Berlin, Madrid and Venice, Smith said from the event, held at a hangar at Paris-Charles De Gaulle airport that was built to house the outgoing A380 superjumbo, Airbus’s largest plane.
“It’s very chic,” Air France unit CEO Anne Rigail said at the event. The airline has configured the A220 with 148 seats — fewer than on a typical A320 or Boeing 737 Max — including business class.