LONDON (Reuters) - Mexican airline Interjet is close to a deal to buy 12 Airbus (PA:AIR) A220 passenger jets to replace its partly grounded fleet of Sukhoi Superjet regional aircraft, industry sources said.
Airbus, which already supplies larger A320-family jets to the airline, declined to comment.
Low-cost carrier Interjet is one of the main foreign operators of Russia’s first post-Soviet passenger jet, which entered service in 2011.
The European planemaker no longer publishes list prices but such a deal would be worth about $1 billion at the most recent catalogue value, with net prices said to be significantly lower after unpublished discounts.
No comment was immediately available from Interjet.
Industry publication Flightglobal reported earlier this year that two thirds of the carrier’s Superjet aircraft were idle because of a lack of spare parts and that the airline planned to withdraw the model from service.