An worker works on the tail of a Boeing Co. Dreamliner 787 plane on the production line at the corporate’s final assembly facility in North Charleston, South Carolina.
Travis Dove | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Boeing said Tuesday that it has reached a deal to sell 78 of its 787 Dreamliner planes to 2 Saudi Arabian airlines, the newest large order for the wide-body jets up to now few months.
The jetliners will go to Saudi Arabian Airlines, or Saudia, and a latest airline, called Riyadh Air, which Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman announced over the weekend. Saudia ordered 39 of the planes, with options for 10 more, and Riyadh Air will get 39 of the 2 largest models of the planes, with options for 33 more.
Boeing didn’t disclose a timeline for deliveries of the planes.
“This may support the country’s goal of serving 330 million passengers and attracting 100 million visits by 2030,” Riyadh Air said in a news release.
The sale shows a pickup in demand for wide-body aircraft, planes which can be used for long-distance flights and fetch a better price than the more-common narrow-body jets.
Riyadh Air is owned by the country’s sovereign wealth fund and might be helmed by Tony Douglas as CEO, a longtime industry veteran and former CEO of Etihad Airways.
In December, United Airlines agreed to purchase a minimum of 100 Dreamliners from Boeing and last month, Air India placed an order for 460 Boeing and Airbus planes.
Boeing is ready to resume deliveries of the Dreamliner planes this week after a weekslong pause resulting from a knowledge evaluation issue it disclosed last month.
Boeing shares were up near 2% in morning trading, barely outpacing the broader market.