In its second major announcement at the Paris Air Show, Airbus has announced that Virgin Atlantic is to buy 14 A330-900 aircraft.
Virgin Atlantic Chief Executive Shai Weiss said at a press conference Monday it was the airline's "biggest ever fleet transformation," and that by 2025 the Virgin fleet would have halved its average age.
The list price for the deal was $4.1 billion dollars, although it is expected that Virgin negotiated a much cheaper deal.The commitment from Virgin was for eight aircraft from Airbus and six additionally leased from Air Lease Corporation.
U.S. firm Delta Airlines owns 49% of Virgin Atlantic and Weiss said the firm had input into the purchase decision.
Weiss added that the order of the A330neo plane will replace Virgin's A330ceos from 2021 and was part of a plan to double its fleet size flying out of Heathrow.
Earlier on Monday, Airbus announced the launch of a long-range, single-aisle airliner. The company also announcement that it agreed to sell 100 planes to the U.S. plane lessor Air Lease Corporation.
