Boeing, Airbus Get Jet Orders of $6 Billion

International Lease Finance Corp. ordered 38 Airbus Industrie jetliners and 18 Boeing Co. planes, including some of the biggest jets made, the manufacturers announced Wednesday.

The companies did not say how much the orders were worth. Beverly Hills-based International Lease probably negotiated a discount for the aircraft, whose sticker prices total about $6 billion.

The orders’ heavy concentration of jets such as Seattle-based Boeing’s 777 and Airbus’ four-engine A-340 underscores a rebound for large airplanes.

The order, one of several huge aircraft purchases in recent months, supports a bright 20-year forecast released Wednesday by Boeing, which raised demand expectations by 6% from last year’s outlook.

“We think that the market is coming back, and we’re happy to say it’s also coming back to manufacturers as well as airlines,” said Nancy Bethel, vice president of marketing for Boeing Commercial Airplane Group.

International Lease, a subsidiary of insurer American International Group Inc., will rent the jets to airlines. The company is one of the biggest jet-leasing firms and competes with a unit of General Electric Co.

As with leasing a car, airlines can rent a plane without tying up as much cash as a purchase would.

The order includes 18 of Boeing’s 777, the company’s newest and much-ballyhooed wide-body jet, with a total value of about $2.8 billion. ILF also took options on two 777s.

Wednesday’s news was tempered by a Wall Street Journal report that United Airlines is unhappy with its new 777. It is particularly embarrassing for Boeing because United was the original customer for the jumbo jet and the first to put it into service, last year.

Boeing and United executives downplayed the report, saying none of the complaints involve safety and most are simply teething pains for an otherwise reliable aircraft.

In a Feb. 13 letter to Boeing, Joseph O’Gorman, United’s director of fleet operations, said the 10 300-seat jets it has purchased so far have been “a major disappointment.” The airplanes’ time out of service has been intolerable, he wrote.

O’Gorman later said in a statement issued through Boeing that the 777 has outperformed all other new airplanes United has introduced.

“Unfortunately, with any new airplane, there are going to be some issues that you have to work out,” Bethel said. “We’re on top of it and we’re working closely with United to make that happen.”

British Airways has also experienced difficulty with the three 777s it operates and has notified both Boeing and GE about the matter, a spokesman said. GE makes the plane’s engines.

The problems don’t affect the safety of the 777, the airlines said.

Michael Blunt, a British Airways spokesman, said the airline’s problems with the 777 included a seal between the engines and frame of the plane that wears out sooner than expected. He said British Airways is talking to Boeing and GE, supplier of the GE-90 engines for the 777, about fixing any flaws.

“We always anticipate a few problems when we introduce new equipment,” Blunt said. “The 777 has gone down better than quite a few models we’ve introduced over the past few years.”

International Lease’s orders for Airbus planes include the first orders for the A330-220, a twin-engine jet expected to carry about 256 passengers up to 6,400 nautical miles. The plane competes with Boeing’s long-range 767-300ER.

The Airbus orders include 26 wide-body craft: 13 of the A330-200s, one A330-300 and 12 long-range A340-300s. It also includes 12 smaller planes: three A-319s, six A-320s and three A-321s.

ILF also took options for five planes from the A-330-A-340 models and three smaller planes.

In its optimistic forecast, Boeing predicted that the world’s airlines would need about 15,900 new jets through 2016. Last year’s estimate, through 2015, pegged it at 15,000 planes.

Demand for new jetliners over the next 20 years will top $1.1 trillion, with Asia showing the fastest growth, Boeing said.

Boeing projects passenger traffic increasing at 5.1% a year worldwide and 7.1% in the Asia-Pacific region. China’s air travel growth is expected to average 11.5%.