Russian Billionaire Threatens To Cancel Billion Dollar Plane Order

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Apr 5th 2009 at 6:02PM

You don't get to be a billionaire without playing a little hardball. We've covered Russian billionaire Alexander Lebedev before for his interest in publishing but Lebedev also owns the airline Blue Wings. This week Germany revoked his company's operating license meaning that the budget carrier can no longer transport passengers in Germany. Lebedev's response was quick and brutal. As Bloomberg reports, he has said he will have to cancel $1 billion order for Airbus SAS planes.

German's aviation officials stated that Blue Wings has "business problems." Lebedev has said he will appeal the decision. Currently Blue Wings has 10 Airbus A320s that fly between Germany and Russia with additional charter flights to Turkey and the Middle East. The Airbus order would have added 20 more A320s to the fleet allowing Blue Wings to increase its routes. Certainly Airbus can't be thrilled about the prospect of losing such a large order so it's a shrewd move on Lebedev's part to potentially pressure Germany to reconsider.

Meanwhile, the Guardian reveals that speculation about that state of Lebedev's finances continues. He has said he will sue Forbes for saying that he had lost $2.5 billion in the economic crisis.

Tags: airbus, airlines, germany