DUBAI (AFP) - - DAE Capital, a subsidiary of public company Dubai Aerospace Enterprise, announced on Monday it would purchase 70 Airbus A320 and 30 A350 planes for a total of 13.5 billion dollars.
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DAE Capital, which leases aircraft, said it had signed a letter of intent to buy the 100 planes. The decision was announced in a statement released at the 10th Dubai air show.
"We are confident that DAE Capital is going to rapidly become a world leader in the leasing of planes," said the company's president, Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed al-Maktoum, who is also head of Emirates airlines.
DAE Capital would began receiving the A320s from 2013 and the A350s from 2018, said the firm's chief executive Bob Genise.
On Sunday, Emirates announced its own mega-contract with Airbus to purchase more than 20 billion dollars' worth of planes, which Airbus executives said was the biggest order in the European aircraft maker's history.
The order from the Dubai-owned carrier was for 70 midsized A350 XWB (Extra Wide Body) aircraft and 11 A380 superjumbos.
An upbeat Airbus sales chief John Leahy raised forecast sales of the A350 XWB to "more than 300" by year's end. He had expected 200 orders at the start of the year.
Leahy added that 2007 will be a record year for the European aircraft manufacturer with 1,122 orders already on its books, which beat the previous record year 2005 when Airbus received 1,111 orders.
He said that orders had stood at 1,021 at the end of October but had increased sharply during the Dubai air show.
Boeing, whose B787 Dreamliner is the major competitor to the A350, won a comparatively modest 3.2 billion dollar order from Emirates for 12 of its B777-300s, bringing the Dubai airline's total outlay for new planes to over 23 billion dollars at the show.
Seattle-based Boeing also said in a statement it had signed an agreement with Qatar Airways for 30 787 Dreamliners and five 777 cargo planes in a deal valued at over 6.1 billion dollars at list prices.
But the lion's share of new orders announced Sunday went to Airbus, a fact welcomed by German president and CEO Tom Enders.
"Emirates airline is placing great faith in our A350 XWB and A380 programmes as well as our company and we are rightfully proud," he said.
Also, state-owned Saudi Arabian Airlines said it has decided to buy an unspecified number of Airbus A320s as part of a plan to modernise its fleet, the official SPA news agency reported on Sunday.
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