Rolls Royce wins Air China order
Aerospace group Rolls-Royce today said it had won an $800m (€663.3m) jet engine deal from Air China.
The company said in an announcement from the Paris Air Show, which opened today, that Air China had chosen its Trent 700 engine to power its new fleet of 20 Airbus A330-200 jets.
It is the first time that Air China, which already uses Rolls-Royce RB211 engines on its fleet of Boeing 757 jets, has ordered Trent engines, Rolls said.
It means London-based Rolls, which makes the Trent family of civil jet engines at its plants in Derby, has attracted 30 customers and operators for the Trent 700 on the A330.
Civil aerospace president for Rolls, Mike Terrett, described Air China’s decision as significant and said it strengthened the UK company’s presence in “the world’s fastest growing aerospace market”.
“This order is a welcome expression of confidence in Rolls-Royce,” he said.
An Air China spokesman said: “This order marks the beginning of a much closer relationship between Air China and Rolls-Royce.”
Rolls said at the show at Le Bourget near Paris that the number of its civil engines in service will increase by 40% in the next five years, from 11,000 to 15,500 by 2010.
“With orders exceeding deliveries for the first time since 2001, the industry is seeing a continuing recovery and business has picked up more quickly than anticipated,” Mr Terrett said.
