Dubai’s financial woes may force majority state-owned Dubai Aerospace Enterprise to renegotiate some 220 aircraft orders with Boeing and Airbus, French daily Les Echos said on Monday. The debt-laden emirate has chosen to turn part of its deliveries into new contracts for airline Emirates, the paper said, without citing a specific source.
No one at Airbus or Boeing was immediately available to comment on the report.
Rather than cancelling its orders, DAE Capital, which handles DAE’s aircraft purchases and leasing activities, would seek to postpone some deliveries to avoid paying penalties and turn others into new contracts for Emirates, the paper said.
DAE ordered 118 aircraft from Boeing in 2007 and 100 planes from Airbus, the paper said, adding that deliveries of the A320s should have started already.
Les Echos also said Robert Genise, DAE Capital’s chief executive, may leave the company, having announced last year that the $1 billion sales target for 2010 would not be reached before end-2013.
Genise and other DAE officials were not immediately available for comment. (Reporting by Michel Rose and Matthieu Protard; Editing by Louise Heavens and David Holmes)
