P.M. BRIEFING : Aeroflot to Buy Western Jets
PARIS — The West European airplane consortium Airbus Industrie said today it has reached a preliminary agreement with the Soviet state airline Aeroflot on the purchase of five Airbus A-310 airliners and options for five more.
A banking source said the preliminary agreement was dependent on Aeroflot obtaining bank financing for the purchase from the consortium of aerospace firms in West Germany, France, Britain and Spain. The source said Aeroflot would need to obtain a servicing agreement with a Western airline.
An Airbus sale to East Germany’s Interflug airline last year was cleared by the West’s export control body COCOM on condition the planes were serviced in West Germany. The Coordinating Committee on Multilateral Export Controls scrutinizes all exports to the East Bloc to prevent the diversion of sophisticated technology to military ends.
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