Although the registered capital of Hong Kong Airlines is very low, several major shareholders have injected quite a lot of capital. Among them, Xinjian Investment Company has invested HK$500 million, accounting for 30% of the shares, Defeng Bank has invested HK$450 million, accounting for 27% of the shares, and Daoheng
The bank and Bank of East Asia each invested HKD 300 million, each holding 18% of the shares, while Industrial Bank invested HKD 117 million to hold 7% of the shares.
This directly transformed this newly established shell company into a large-scale company with assets worth over one billion in Hong Kong. The two major aircraft manufacturing companies in the world even took notice and sent their vice presidents to Hong Kong.
Especially for Airbus, there is still a huge gap compared with Boeing. The performance of the Airbus A300 it developed is not very good. The Airbus A300B once had no orders for 16 months. It has only improved in the past two years, and the order growth has not been very good.
It's okay.
This time, two airlines have been established in Xiangjiang. Especially Xiangjiang Airlines’ capital is as high as more than 200 million US dollars. At the current price of 17 million US dollars for an Airbus A300B, at least ten can be purchased.
If we can win the order from Xiangjiang Airlines, not only will Airbus' performance grow significantly, but it will also help Airbus open up the Asian market.
Airbus Vice President David Darvill had a very clear goal after arriving in Hong Kong, which was to go to Wheelock Building to visit Li Jianhui.
He knows very well that although Wei Li is currently the general manager of Xiangjiang Airlines, it is Li Jianhui who ultimately decides which aircraft Xiangjiang Airlines will purchase.
At ten o'clock in the morning on March 17, Darvill came to Li Jianhui's office on time.
As a salesman, he brought quite a lot of things. In addition to information on each model of the A300 series, there were also miniature models of each model.
After Li Jianhui listened quietly to Darvill's introduction, he said: "The Airbus A300 series is indeed a good aircraft, but the location of Xiangjiang determines that our airline mainly needs long-range aircraft. Airbus is still far behind the Boeing 747 in this regard.
There’s quite a gap.”
Darvill is naturally aware of this problem. The Airbus A300 series is positioned on short- and medium-haul routes, and the current long-range A300B4-100 is only more than 5,000 kilometers long.
This is more than half less than the more than 12,000 kilometers of the Boeing 747-200, which is indeed not conducive to long-distance or even ultra-long-distance routes.
However, Xiangjiang Airlines only deals with routes in Asia, especially Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia, and the range of Airbus A300B4-100 is completely sufficient.
"Mr. Li, there is indeed a gap between Airbus and Boeing 747 in terms of range. However, we also have passenger aircraft with a range of nearly 6,000 kilometers, which is enough for Xiangjiang Airlines to fly to Beijing, Tokyo, Seoul, Sinzhou, Jakarta, and New Delhi.
, Mumbai and other major Asian cities.
Moreover, our Airbus A300 series is more fuel-efficient than the Boeing 747 series. You also know that we are currently in the oil crisis, and our Airbus A300 is definitely the most cost-effective product for short and medium distances."
At present, there are not many routes applied by Xiangjiang Airlines, mainly Xiangjiang-Taoyuan, Xiangjiang-Kaohsiung, Xiangjiang-Kuala Lumpur, Xiangjiang-Tokyo, Xiangjiang-Osaka, Xiangjiang-Seoul (Seoul), Xiangjiang-Bangkok, Xiangjiang-Xingzhou, Xiangjiang-
There are 15 routes in total including Jakarta, Hong Kong-Manila, Hong Kong-New Delhi, Hong Kong-London, Hong Kong-San Francisco, Hong Kong-Los Angeles, and Hong Kong-Vancouver.
As for the route from Hong Kong to the mainland, the communication time required in this regard will be longer than in these areas. In addition, Kowloon Air mainly opens routes to the mainland. Li Jianhui is not ready to join in the fun for the time being. He plans to wait a year or two before talking about it.
The Airbus A300B4-100 can meet most of these routes, except for the four routes to London, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Vancouver.
"I admit that the Airbus A300 series is indeed more fuel-efficient than the Boeing 747 series, but I have several ultra-long-distance routes where I must buy a Boeing 747. If I buy Airbus, it will definitely increase my company's logistics and maintenance work. After all, the products of different companies are different.
There are definitely some differences in maintenance.
And I heard that Airbus has benefited from the oil crisis in the past two years, and while its performance has grown, prices have also risen steadily.
On the contrary, due to the oil crisis, Boeing's order volume has dropped significantly in recent years, and the price is relatively cheap. The most important thing is that Boeing has a lot of stocks in stock, which is most needed for our newly established Xiangjiang Airlines.
It is impossible for our company to wait for one or two years, or even two or three years, before it is officially put into operation. According to my plan, Xiangjiang Airlines' aircraft will officially serve passengers from all over the world on June 1."
Since Darvill is here, why hasn't he considered these aspects? He won't make too many concessions in terms of price. After all, selling it to Xiangjiang Airlines at a low price will offend other customers.
But on the aircraft, they were also able to complete the delivery to Xiangjiang Airlines within two months.
Airbus is a company jointly established by Britain, Germany, France and other countries. For this order and to open up the Asian market, they can communicate with several major European airlines to postpone the delivery time to their company.
In this regard, when he came to Xiangjiang, the company's senior management was communicating with Lufthansa, Air France, KLM, etc., and the results were quite good. As long as he could win the order, he could give priority to supplying goods to Xiangjiang Airlines.
Li Jianhui has not committed to purchasing Airbus aircraft for the time being, citing the need to discuss with the company's top management.
He also needs to find out the specific prices from Boeing to see how much discount Boeing can offer.
As for the Lockheed Samsung passenger aircraft, Li Jianhui did not consider it at all. He focused mainly on these two companies.
Boeing has the 747 for ultra-long range and McDonnell Douglas for medium and short range. Although Boeing has seen the threat from Airbus, it has begun to develop the 767. Unfortunately, this aircraft will not be available in a short time.
When leaving, Darvill said: "Mr. Li, I will be in Xiangjiang these days. If you need to know about Airbus-related issues, you can contact me at any time. I believe that the Airbus A300 series is definitely the most suitable for Xiangjiang Airlines."
The main operating model of the aircraft, we at Airbus are very much looking forward to cooperating with Xiangjiang Airlines."
“I personally also hope to strengthen cooperation with Airbus, but I don’t have the final say in this company alone, and many things still need to be negotiated.
After I reach a consensus with several major shareholders, I will contact Mr. Darvill again."
After Darvill left, Li Jianhui told Weili about today's negotiation and asked him to weigh it and see which aircraft would be more suitable for the company to purchase.
In fact, Li Jianhui prefers Airbus in his heart. On the one hand, the Airbus A300 is more fuel-efficient on short and medium distances, which can save considerable costs.
On the other hand, behind Boeing is the First Citigroup, which is why Li Jianhui does not want to cooperate with it.
As Li Jianhui continues to rise, especially in the future of high-tech industries, the U.S. government and consortiums will definitely suppress him without mercy. The situation faced by several major Japanese consortiums now may be his future, and the situation may even be even worse.
Moreover, there were many safety accidents in the Boeing system in the previous life. Airbus had relatively fewer accidents. For safety reasons, Li Jianhui and you also prefer Airbus.
The main reason why he did not place an order immediately is that he hopes to let Boeing put some pressure on Airbus and then push the price down to save the airline's procurement costs.