AirFrance-KLM splits orders worth $12 billion between Airbus and Boeing

Air France-KLM has split a $12 billion order for long-range jets following a year-long competition, announcing plans to buy 25 Boeing 787 Dreamliners and 25 Airbus A350s. The move is part of a plan to renew the fleet of Europe's largest airline and the order could rise to 110 of the next-generation aircraft including 60 more options. EADS unit Airbus said it expected to receive 35 of these. Air France-KLM shares opened up more than 1 percent before slipping 0.5 percent to 6.035 euros by 4:26 a.m. ET. Shares in Airbus parent EADS were down 1.1 percent.

The deal follows months of politically sensitive negotiations during which the airline appeared to be pulled between pressure from French politicians to protect jobs at Toulouse-based Airbus and its own differences with Airbus over what caused the 2009 mid-Atlantic crash of an Airbus jet. The airline believes pilots have been wrongly blamed. Air France-KLM has said it ignored calls from French politicians to favor Airbus, but in a sign of frosty relations it snubbed the usual practice of endorsing the Airbus part of the deal in the planemaker's press release.

Boeing is delivering its first 787 Dreamliner to Japanese airline All Nippon Airways next week after three years of production delays as it switched from aluminum to lightweight carbon composites. Airbus plans to deliver its similar A350 mid-decade after earlier delays in the design. Air France-KLM said it aimed to operate 73 of the 250-300 seat aircraft through 2024, including 43 Airbus A350-900 and 30 Boeing 787-9 models. The first Boeing 787-9 will enter into service with KLM in 2016, and the first Airbus A350-900 with Air France in 2018. "Later, both airlines will operate both types of aircraft," the carrier said in a statement. The airlines merged in 2004 but maintain separate networks.

Final details of the order are still being negotiated. The firm part of the order for 50 aircraft is worth $6.7 billion to Airbus and $5.5 billion to Boeing, according to list prices. Airlines usually obtain significant discounts. Air France-KLM indicated in June it would follow United Airlines in splitting the order for the new generation of aircraft between Airbus and Boeing. The plane order guarantees business for Britain's Rolls-Royce (LSE:RR.L - News) to provide power for the A350-900, for which it makes the only engines currently on offer. But industry sources say rival General Electric is front-runner to power the Boeing 787s, for which it competes with Rolls-Royce. Air France traditionally buys long-range engines from the U.S. company.

Air France A330 crash report

The Air France airliner that crashed into the Atlantic in 2009 was out of control for four minutes, investigators said, in a report raising questions about how crew handled a "stall alarm" blaring out in the cabin. Information gleaned from black boxes, and recovered almost two years after the disaster killed 228 people, confirmed that speed-readings in the Airbus cockpit had gone haywire, believed to be linked to the icing of speed sensors outside the jet. As Air France pilots fought for control, the doomed A330 dropped 38,000 feet, rolling left to right, its engines flat out but its wings unable to grab enough air to keep flying.

The plane crashed on June 1, 2009, en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. Black boxes stopped recording at 0214 GMT. France's BEA crash investigation agency said in a detailed chronology of the crash that commands from the controls of the 32-year-old junior pilot on board had pulled the nose up as the aircraft became unstable and generated an audible stall warning. Aviation industry sources told reporters that this action went against the normal procedures which call for the nose to be lowered in response to an alert that the plane was about to stall.

This type of aerodynamic stall is nothing to do with a stall in the engines, both of which kept working as crew requested. "A stall is the moment at which a plane stops flying and starts falling," said David Learmount, operations and safety editor at the British aviation publication Flight International. An aircraft industry safety consultant said the standard guidance in the Airbus pilot manual called in this event for the pilot to lower the nose by pushing the control stick forward.

"The BEA is now going to have to analyze and get to bottom of how crew handled this event," said Paul Hayes, safety director at Ascend Aviation, a UK-based aviation consultancy. "The big question in my mind is why did the pilot flying (the aircraft) appear to continue to pull the nose up," he said. French investigators said the emergency began with the autopilot disengaging itself two and a half hours into the flight and the junior pilot, who had been in control at take-off, picked up manually and saying "I have control".

The autopilot appears to have responded to a loss of reliable airspeed information. This was accompanied moments later by the disembodied voice of a recorded "stall" alert. It is what happened next that is likely to fuel most theories on what preceded the crash, but Air France and its main pilots union insisted faulty speed probes were the root cause. In a passage likely to attract particular scrutiny, the BEA said the pilot "maintained" the nose-up command despite fresh stall warnings 46 seconds into the four-minute emergency.

"The inputs made by the pilot flying were mainly nose-up," the report added. The Airbus jet climbed 3,000 feet to 38,000 feet despite the crew having decided earlier against a climb, and then began a dramatic descent, with the youngest pilot handing control to the second most senior pilot a minute before impact. The captain returned after "several attempts" to call him back to the cockpit but was not at the controls in the final moments, according to information gleaned from black boxes.

By the time the 58-year-old returned, just over a minute into the emergency, the aircraft was in serious trouble: plunging at 10,000 feet a minute with its nose pointing up 15 degrees and at too high an angle to the air to recapture lift. The BEA did not provide extracts of the transcript for the last minute before the jet hit the water with its nose up. It promised a fuller interim report which could say more about the causes of the crash in July.

Air France crash - black box located.

Investigators have located and recovered the memory unit of the flight data recorder of a 2009 Air France flight - a remarkable deep-sea discovery they hope will explain why the aircraft went down in a remote area of the mid-Atlantic, killing all 228 people on board. France's air accident investigation agency BEA said a search by a submarine probing some 3,900 meters (12,800 feet) below the ocean's surface located and recovered the unit Sunday morning. The unit is now aboard the ship Ile de Sein, the statement said.

The statement also included photos of the recorder - a red cylinder partially buried in sand on the sea floor. Judging from the photos, the unit appeared to be in good condition. Last month, the agency said the undersea search had identified the "chassis" that had held the recorder, but said the memory unit was still missing. The flight data recorder stores data from the flight. Another so-called "black box" records cockpit conversations.

Investigators hope Sunday's remarkable discovery will allow them to determine what caused the June 1, 2009 crash of Flight 447 from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to the French capital, Paris. The aircraft slammed into the Atlantic northeast of Brazil after running into an intense high-altitude thunderstorm. Automatic messages sent by the Airbus 330's computers showed it was receiving false air speed readings from sensors known as pitot tubes. Investigators have said the crash was likely caused by a series of problems, and not just sensor error.

The crash site was so remote and in such a deep area of the Atlantic that the bulk of the wreckage was only recently discovered, thanks to a deep-sea search. Experts have said that without retrieving the voice and data recorders there would be almost no chance of determining what caused the crash - the worst disaster in Air France's history.

Boeing delivered its 200th aircraft to Air France

Boeing and Air France celebrated on Wednesday the 200th direct delivery of a Boeing jetliner – a 777-300ER (extended range) – to the Paris-based carrier.
The 777 is the backbone of the long-haul fleet. This new aircraft will support Air France's projected growth on long-haul destinations and confirm the Air France-KLM Group's European leadership position on the international network. With this latest delivery, Air France continues to upgrade its fleet, one of the youngest in Europe, and launches its new business class.
For the 2011 summer season, Air France will be operating a total of 61 777s making it one of the largest 777 passenger fleets in the world. The airline also operates two 777 Freighters and 12 747s. Boeing is scheduled to deliver to Air France one 777 Freighter in 2011 and 11 additional 777-300ERs through 2015. In addition to their direct purchase of Boeing airplanes, Air France has successfully operated many other Boeing airplanes on lease for many years.The 777-300ER is 19 percent lighter than its closest competitor, greatly reducing its fuel requirement. It produces 22 percent less carbon dioxide per seat and costs 20 percent less to operate per seat. The airplane has a maximum range of 7,930 nautical miles (14,685 km). The 777 family is the world's most successful twin-engine, twin-aisle airplane. Sixty-one customers around the world have ordered more than 1,100 777s.