In late 2007, Gulf Air, the national airline of the oil-rich kingdom of Bahrain, picked Airbus for a huge sale. Boeing told the US government, which responded that there was still a way to turn the deal around, even though Airbus had offered the planes for about $US400 million less than Boeing.
The US ambassador at the time, Adam Ereli, went to work ''lobbying Gulf Air management, board members, government officials and representatives of parliament'', and appealing directly to the crown prince of Bahrain, in an effort to line up a deal for Boeing that could be final in time for a coming visit by Bush, the first visit by a sitting US president. Within two weeks, the embassy alerted Boeing officials that the crown prince and king of Bahrain had rejected Airbus's offer and directed Gulf Air's chairman to make a deal with Boeing that could be signed while Bush was in the country.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy made a last-minute bid to save the deal, the State Department cable says. He offered to visit Bahrain after Bush had left, but that stop was cancelled when the Boeing agreement was signed in January 2008.
Source:
New York Times