=20 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This article was sent to you by someone who found it on SFGate. The original article can be found on SFGate.com here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=3D/n/a/2006/07/06/financial/= f215144D95.DTL --------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday, July 6, 2006 (AP) Chinese Southern Air to Buy 50 Airbus Jets (07-06) 23:33 PDT SHANGHAI, China (AP) -- China Southern Airlines Co., one of China's three biggest carriers, said Friday it has agreed to buy 50 Airbus A320 aircraft. The airline signed an agreement to buy the planes Thursday after its boa= rd approved the purchase, it said in a statement published in the state-run newspaper China Securities Journal. The catalog price of the jets totals 26.53 billion yuan (US$3.3 billion; euro2.6 billion), but the airline said it would pay less, without giving an exact amount. The 50 planes will be delivered to the airline from 2009 to 2010. Rival airline China Eastern Airlines Co. last week announced the purchase of 30 Airbus 320s. The purchases appeared to be part of a 150-aircraft order from Airbus by six Chinese airlines, announced during a visit by Premier Wen Jiabao to France in December. Last month, the Chinese government said it has approved Airbus's plan to open an assembly plant for A320s in the eastern city of Tianjin. Toulouse, France-based Airbus and its U.S. rival, Chicago-based Boeing Co., are looking to China's growing aviation market to drive sales in coming decades. Airbus has in the past taken about one-third of China's aircraft orders, with Boeing winning about 60 percent. China Southern is one of China's three biggest airlines in terms of traffic, along with Air China Ltd. and China Eastern Airlines Corp. Separately, the government reported that passenger volume on domestic Chinese airlines rose 18 percent in the first half of the year to 74.3 million people. China's aviation market as measured by flight volume ranked second in the world last year after the United States at 25.8 billion ton kilometers, a rise of 12 percent from 2004, according to statistics reported last month by the International Aviation Organization and China's General Administration of Civil Aviation. -----------------------------------------= ----------------------------- Copyright 2006 AP