AirAsia X restructuring plan may cost Airbus $5bn

Airbus (AIB, Toulouse Blagnac) believes it could lose more than USD5 billion worth of orders if AirAsia X (D7, Kuala Lumpur Int’l) is to press ahead with its planned restructuring. It has now joined other creditors in challenging the carrier’s radical restructuring scheme, papers filed at Kuala Lumpur High Court show. The manufacturer “has already built, or substantially built,” seven A330-900Ns for the beleaguered airline, the affidavit said as quoted by Reuters. According to the ch-aviation fleets advanced module, AirAsia X has 78 of the type on order along with ten A350-900s and thirty A321-200Ns. AirAsia X has failed to pay USD301.2 million in pre-delivery payments for its A330neo widebody orders and USD2.5 million for the A321-200neo narrowbodies, the December 16 affidavit filed by Airbus’ Asia-Pacific regional chief Anand Stanley claimed. He said that there is a “strong possibility that Airbus will suffer substantial losses and prejudice” from the termination of the orders under the restructuring plan. As a result, it may have to adjust its production rates on the A330neo programme. AirAsia X is by far the latter programme’s biggest customer, accounting for a quarter of the type’s orders. Under its debt restructuring scheme, AirAsia X has, as previously reported, proposed reconstituting USD15.3 billion of debt into a principal amount of MYR200 million (USD49 million) and waiving the rest, prompting uproar among its creditors. However, AirAsia X claimed in an affidavit filed on December 21 that it was still seeking court approval to convene a creditors’ meeting to approve the scheme, alleging that several lessors, such as Castlelake, had said they supported the plan and that Rolls-Royce had agreed to consider it. That contradicts the position of lessors like BOC Aviation, which asked the court earlier this month to dismiss the scheme because it rules out a debt-to-equity swap and because it gives too much power to Airbus as a creditor. Debt calculations link most of the owed sum to orders for aircraft that have not yet been delivered, BOC argued.