China may use an upcoming summit with European leaders as a platform to place a large Airbus aircraft order, according to a Bloomberg report. The outlet cites people familiar with the matter and says the order could be for as many as 500 aircraft and include a mix of narrowbodies and widebodies.
European leaders are due to travel to Beijing in July for a summit to mark 50 years of diplomatic ties. The European Union is China's second-largest trading partner. The aircraft order talks are described as "fluid" and not finalised. However, last month, China's vice premier, He Lifeng, visited France, where he met with Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury, among other people.
According to ch-aviation Commercial Aviation News, Operator & Airport Data, Chinese carriers currently have a combined 323 aircraft on order at Airbus, substantially more than the 139 aircraft on order at Boeing, which has not picked up a sizeable order from any Chinese operator since 2017. To date, China's largest deal with Airbus was in July 2022 when Air China, China Eastern Airlines, China Southern Airlines, and Shenzhen Airlines agreed to buy 292 A320 Family aircraft. The reported upcoming order may eclipse that, and if it ranges towards the 500 mark it will be among the biggest ever placed.
However, Chinese airlines relatively rarely disclose their orders and frequently remain unidentified as customers until the delivery of the aircraft.
An Airbus order would be a blow for Boeing, which has become a major casualty of the ongoing US-China trade war. Beijing recently temporarily banned its airlines from accepting deliveries of new Boeing aircraft. It has now lifted that ban, but the US manufacturer has struggled to gain traction in the Chinese market in recent years and faces a hostile Chinese government that may use aircraft orders as a weapon in the ongoing geopolitical and trade conflict with the White House.
