Lufthansa confirmed its order for 15 CRJ900s, valued at $584 million, plus 15 purchase rights. It announced its commitment last month (ATWOnline, April 18). The order increases to 109 the number of firm orders placed by LH and its regional partners for CRJs and brings to 196 the total number of CRJ900s sold, including a firm order placed last week by Tatarstan Airlines for six plus four options.

TUI Group, the German tourism company that owns six airlines, placed firm orders for 11 787-8s and 50 737NGs collectively valued at $4.7 billion, Boeing revealed yesterday. The aircraft, previously listed as belonging to an unidentified customer, will be operated by Netherlands' Arkefly, Belgium's Jetairfly, UK's Thomsonfly, Germany's TUIfly and Scandinavia's TUIfly Nordic.

Airbus said construction began yesterday on its A320 family Final Assembly Line in Tianjin. The project will include the building of dedicated hangars, office buildings, a delivery center and related facilities, including electricity, gas, water and fuel supply systems. "This not only represents a new level of mutually beneficial industrial cooperation between China and Airbus, but also demonstrates our long-term commitment to the development of the Chinese civil aviation industry," Airbus COO Fabrice Bregier said.

EgyptAir Express took delivery of its first E-170. The new EgyptAir subsidiary ordered six E-170s in September plus six options and plans to use the regional jets in single-class configuration with 76 seats primarily for domestic services.

Lufthansa Systems said Spanair will implement its ProfitLine/Yield Rembrandt solution to optimize further its revenue management processes. It also said KLM extended its existing contract to support its flight planning processes with Lido OC for an additional five years. KLM also selected the Lido module LinTop to calculate single-point takeoff performances, replacing the paper-based charts it previously used.

Boeing said the composite wings for the 787 were delivered to its final assembly plant in Everett yesterday. Manufactured by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Nagoya, each wing is 98 ft. long.

Wizz Air took delivery of the first of 32 A320s directly purchased from Airbus.

Finnair said it will sell the last two MD-11s it owns to Aeroflot. The aircraft will be transferred in November 2008 and July 2009. Value of the sale is at least €30 million ($40.6 million). Finnair operates seven MD-11s, five of which are under leasing agreements that expire by the end of 2010, when it plans to have retired all MD-11s and operate a long-haul fleet of A330s and A340s.