AVIATION : Boeing to Get Bulk of Saudi Order : Jetliners: But Long Beach-based Douglas will get a piece of the action too, commerce secretary confirms.
Saudi Arabia’s long-delayed order for U.S. jetliners is finally at hand, with Long Beach-based Douglas Aircraft Co. set to receive about a third of the $6-billion order as expected, U.S. Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown confirmed Monday.
The bulk of the order from the desert kingdom’s Saudia state airline will go to aircraft industry leader Boeing Co., Brown said in a telephone interview. “American commercial aircraft will get 100% of the order,” he said.
Brown declined to elaborate, noting the aircraft industry’s practice of letting the customer formally announce new orders. Boeing and McDonnell Douglas, Douglas Aircraft’s parent, also declined to comment for that reason.
Nonetheless, Brown said reports that the Saudis will order Boeing 777s and 747s, together with nearly 30 Douglas MD-90 twin-jets and a few MD-11s, “are perfectly consistent with what we’ve heard.”
Brown declined to say when the order might be announced, but industry sources said it could come as early as this week.
The Saudi plans to buy U.S. aircraft--thereby shutting out European rival Airbus Industrie--were first announced with fanfare by the Clinton Administration in February, 1994, following heavy lobbying by Brown, President Clinton and other U.S. officials.
But financial problems prompted the Saudis to postpone the order, leaving the White House with an embarrassing delay. Boeing and Douglas executives returned to Saudi Arabia two weeks ago to resume negotiations.
