European aerospace company Airbus is apparently putting up four aircrafts for sale which were originally intended for AirAsia. Citing insider sources and an internal document, the report by Reuters stated that Airbus has already opened the bid for these aircrafts.
Inside the list, there are apparently four A320neo and two A321neo up for grabs. These aircrafts have an average price of USD 110.6 million and USD 129.5 million each according to Airbus price list back in 2018, although their actual prices are likely to be vastly different from one buyer to another.
The report by Reuters also stated that the buyers of these aircraft will also receive the optional equipment that AirAsia has chose to equip into them. They can also choose to pick them up either in France or Germany this coming June.
On the surface, it is not easy to pinpoint the real reason behind the sale of these aircrafts since AirAsia is one of Airbus biggest customer. While it is likely just a move by the European aerospace company to gain back the cost for building these aircrafts, they are just a fraction of the orders for A320neo and A321neo that AirAsia still has with the company, according to its orders and deliveries figures in March 2020 [Excel file].
Then again, AirAsia and the industry in general is not in a good place at the moment since COVID-19 pandemic has pretty much restricted their operations, if not totally grounding them to a halt. Even though AirAsia is going to resume its operations in phases very soon, there is still a long and winding road up ahead as the threat of COVID-19 is expected to linger around for quite some time.
