British Airways ordering Boeing planes

British Airways ordering Boeing planes

British Airways has announced that they are going to purchase four Boeing 777 aircraft, with options for four more. This means that Airbus failed to impress them with their Airbus A330 planes.

British Airways Commercial Director Robert Boyle spoke on this new development: “It was a very close decision between the Boeing 777s and Airbus A330s. However, the ease of assimilating up to eight aircraft into our existing 777 fleet, rather than having a small number of A330s, swung the balance in Boeing’s favor.”

He added: “We already have 43 of the 777 aircraft, and that was the tipping factor.”

British Airways’ announcement is yet another bad news for European aircraft manufacturer Airbus which recently postponed a major announcement on job cuts this week.

BA’s four Boeing 777-200 ERs are scheduled for delivery in early 2009. Airbus had earlier said in a statement that they had sold four smaller single-aisle A320s to British Airways.