Believe it or not, Boeing has agreed to purchase a handful of Airbus A340-600 aircraft. Even more surprising? This actually isn’t a particularly uncommon move in general, though it is less common in the aviation world. The story comes out of China, where China Eastern has indicated that they are going to purchase 20 Boeing 777 aircraft. At the same time, Boeing will purchase five A346s that China Eastern is currently operating, allowing the carrier to shift their operations to the Boeing aircraft.
So, is this really all that shocking? Actually not. It isn’t particularly uncommon for one vendor to buy out the legacy equipment of another vendor to close a deal. I used to be involved in such negotiations on a somewhat frequent basis. Whether the legacy gear is scrapped or re-sold varies from vendor to vendor and industry to industry, but the general premise is pretty sound.
So, yes, the headline makes for very entertaining reading, but the actual news behind it isn’t all that crazy.
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