No Chinese Airlines Cancel Orders - Airbus

Airbus has had no order cancellations from Chinese airlines so far amid the global industry downturn, its China president said Monday.

China's three biggest carriers have all predicted losses for 2008 as a slowing economy curbs air travel, spurring the government to encourage cancellation or postponement in deliveries of plane orders.

A few Chinese airlines have asked for delays in taking delivery of previous orders but none has cancelled, Laurence Barron said on the sidelines of an event to mark the delivery of an A320 single-aisle plane to China's privately owned Spring Airlines.

"We have some discussions to help certain airlines get through the difficult period, but we are talking about a relatively small number of aircraft. We don't have any significant problem at the moment in delivering our aircraft," Barron said.

The president of China Eastern Airlines, which has forecast a significant loss for 2008, said in February the carrier intended to cancel or delay half of the 29 planes it had expected to receive from Airbus and Boeing this year, its president Ma Xulun said in February.

Smaller rival Shanghai Airlines, which remained in the red for a second year in 2008, is in discussions with Boeing on whether to accept a 787 Dreamliner ordered previously, its chairman Zhou Chi told reporters last week.

Some Chinese airline executives have blamed their operational difficulties in part on an over-supply of new aircraft, which significantly pushed up debt ratios.

Barron said it was hard to predict precisely when the air travel market in China would stablize but he expected new aircraft orders would resume when that happens.

He expected the country would need about 3,000 planes over the next 20 years.

Airbus runs a joint assembly venture in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin, which makes aircraft in the A320 family.