According to the Seattle Times, Lufthansa will order 20 of the Boeing 747-8 or 747 Intercontinental.
Lufthansa plans to buy about 20 Boeing 747-8 planes worth $5 billion at list prices, a setback to Airbus, people familiar with the order said.
Lufthansa would be the first airline customer to purchase the passenger version of Boeing's newest 747. The carrier may announce the order tomorrow, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions haven't been made public.
The decision lets Lufthansa upgrade and expand its long- haul fleet and brings Boeing's backlog for the 747-8 to 69 airliners with a list price of up to $19.5 billion. Boeing has been gaining on bigger rival Airbus this year. Lufthansa was among the earliest customers for Airbus's competing A380, now two years behind schedule.
"Lufthansa is one of the leading international carriers and this kind of order illustrates Boeing's growing lead in the wide-body aircraft market," said Craig Fraser, a Fitch Ratings analyst in New York. "They are pulling away from Airbus and taking advantage of Airbus's problems with the A380."
Boeing spokesman Tim Bader declined to comment. "No decision has been made yet," said Stefanie Stotz, a spokeswoman in Frankfurt for Cologne, Germany-based Lufthansa.
The carrier's supervisory board will meet tomorrow and approve an order for a minimum of 20 jetliners, one of the people said.
A second person said Lufthansa will announce an order tomorrow and that the size would be similar to what the Wall Street Journal reported earlier today. The newspaper said the carrier will buy 20 747s and take options for 20 more.
The 747-8 will be built using the more-efficient engines and wing design from Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner, and the plane will cost 21 percent less to operate than Airbus's A380, according to Boeing's Web site.
The 747-8 lists for up to $282.5 million each for passenger versions. The Airbus model lists for about $300 million.
Since Boeing introduced the 747-8 in November 2005, it has won a total of 49 firm orders. Boeing Business Jet has ordered three of the passenger version and Lufthansa would be the first outside airline client.
Expansion Plans
Lufthansa is still considering further purchases and is weighing Boeing's 787 model and Toulouse, France-based Airbus's A350 as the company aims to grow 4 percent to 6 percent a year.
The carrier ordered five 335-seat Airbus A330-300 aircraft in September for its long-haul fleet and 30 short-haul Airbus planes, worth $3.12 billion at list prices.
Chief Executive Officer Wolfgang Mayrhuber said in October he wanted to wait until he saw the final form of the A350 before deciding between that and the 787 for other orders to come in 2007.
Airbus is redesigning the A350 after complaints from potential customers. The planemaker won approval for the new project Dec. 1 from EADS, and the A350 XWB is now scheduled to enter service in 2013, five years after the 787. The program was in jeopardy because of cost overruns with the new 555-seat A380.
Lufthansa will have the world's second-largest A380 fleet, behind Emirates, once it receives all 15 on order, the first of which is now due to arrive in 2009.
Lufthansa will also probably decide in the next six months on an order for a "double-digit" number of regional aircraft, the company's fleet manager, Nico Buchholz, said Nov. 12.
The carrier has said it's in talks with Bombardier Inc. and Empresa Brasileira de Aeronautica SA, or Embraer. Bombardier executives said in October that the German airline is considering buying 12 CRJ900 aircraft, which can carry 75 to 90 passengers and have a list price of $35.2 million each.
Lufthansa currently operates 236 passenger aircraft, 61 percent of which are Airbus models. The rest are single-aisle 737 and twin-aisle 747 airliners made by Boeing.