French parliamentarians have launched a petition calling on Air France-KLM to place a $20-25 billion plane order with Airbus and not Boeing - but airline officials said they would split the order.
Bernard Carayon, a member of President Nicolas Sarkozy's ruling conservative UMP party, who claims authorship of the popular term "economic patriotism" to defend French firms, said he had collected signatures from 102 members of parliament.
"When the Americans buy American, Europeans should buy European," said Carayon, whose list of signatories amounts to more than one in six members of the lower National Assembly.
Air France-KLM is negotiating with Boeing and Airbus and their engine makers after launching a tender for 100 mid-sized Airbus A350 or Boeing 787 jets to renew its long-haul fleet.
The order for the latest carbon-composite aircraft is seen as one of the biggest industry battles in the coming year. Airline officials told Reuters the contract would be designed according to the needs of the group's two main networks and would probably be split between Boeing and Airbus.
"My view is that at some point in the future, both types of aircraft will be flying on both of our networks," Peter Hartman, chief executive of Dutch carrier KLM, told Reuters.
Air France and KLM merged in 2004 to form Europe's largest airline by revenues but they kept separate networks and brands.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.