Looking to reinforce their positions in an increasingly crowded domestic marketplace, Hainan Airlines, Shanghai Airlines, Spring Airlines and China United Airlines, among others, are planning aircraft buys this year.

Airbus yesterday delivered an A300 freighter to FedEx, the final A300/A310 that the manufacturer will produce. Over the life of the program, which was launched in 1969 with the first aircraft delivered to Air France in 1974, Airbus sold a total of 821 A300s/A310s. About 630 are still in service with approximately 80 operators.

Royal Brunei Airlines will lease four 787-8s for delivery beginning in late 2009, according to Rolls-Royce, which announced that it reached agreement with the carrier to provide Trent 1000 engines and a long-term TotalCare service accord. Aircraft lessor was not identified.

Air China will take delivery of 23 A320s that were part of the government's purchase of 150 aircraft concluded last fall (ATWOnline, Oct. 27, 2006), according to widespread press reports from China. CA will take the aircraft, worth approximately $1.41 billion at list price, between January 2009 and December 2012, according to a company statement. Its capacity will rise 5.9% with the new aircraft.

Northwest Airlines said it is selling nine of its 65 A319s as part of an effort to right-size its fleet. The carrier said the deals were negotiated during its Chapter 11 restructuring and now are nearing closing. Buyers and purchase prices were not disclosed. NWA's A319s are configured with 16 business-class and 108 economy seats. It also has 73 148-seat A320s.