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Iberia orders 11 Airbus jets
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September 22, 1998: 9:26 a.m. ET
Spanish carrier replacing long-haul DC-10s with A340s in $1.4B deal
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Airbus Industrie said Tuesday that Spain's flag carrier Iberia Airlines has ordered up to 11 additional A340 jets.
The European aircraft consortium said the agreement includes six firm orders and five options, bringing the book value of the order to $1.4 billion. Iberia will take delivery of the new jets starting in November 1999.
The planes gradually will replace Iberia's current DC-10 fleet and are part of the company's strategy to modernize in anticipation of its privatization, which is due to begin in the first quarter of 1999.
Iberia currently operates eight A340s on its routes from Madrid to U.S. and Latin American destinations. In June, the airline purchased 76 Airbus single-aisle airliners.
Iberia also is expected to announce plans to join the "oneworld" alliance once it has secured a commercial pact with British Airways (BAB). Iberia currently is in talks with British Airways to seal a code-sharing pact, under which passengers can automatically connect from flights of one airline to the other, similar to a recent deal the Spanish carrier reached with American Airlines (AMR).
The oneworld alliance, announced Monday by American Airlines, British Airways, Canadian Airlines, Cathay Pacific Airways and Qantas Airways, was created to step up customer service worldwide.
Airbus Industrie is a consortium composed of French state-owned Aerospatiale, British Aerospace PLC, Germany's Daimler-Benz Aerospace, a unit of Daimler-Benz AG, and Construcciones Aeronauticas SA (CASA) of Spain. 
-- from staff and wire reports
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Iberia
Airbus Industrie
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