By Lisa Barrington, Tim Hepher and Abhijith Ganapavaram
SEOUL/PARIS (Reuters) -Boeing is looking to resell potentially dozens of planes locked out of China by tariffs after repatriating a third jet to the United States in a delivery standoff that drew new criticism of Beijing from U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday.
The move to prevent a repeat of the costly build-up of undelivered jets seen during past safety and trade crises comes as the planemaker seeks to prevent tensions undercutting its efforts to save cash and pay down debts.
Boeing took the rare step of publicly flagging the potential aircraft sale during an analyst call on Wednesday, saying there would be no shortage of buyers in a tight jet market.
“Customers are calling, asking for additional airplanes,” CFO Brian West said. Such negotiations are usually kept tightly under wraps.
“Due to the tariffs, many of our customers in China have indicated that they will not take delivery,” CEO Kelly Ortberg said.
Industry sources said the comments were seen as a signal to Beijing and Washington that the tariff conflict between the world’s two largest economies risked damage as Chinese airlines scramble for capacity and Boeing is left with a new stockpile.
Trump this month raised baseline tariffs on Chinese imports to 145%. China retaliated with a 125% tariff on U.S. goods.
On Thursday, Trump urged the planemaker to “default China” for not taking planes it had committed to purchase.
“This is just a small example of what China has done to the USA, for years,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
Boeing had no immediate comment on the post.
Washington had previously signalled openness to de-escalating the trade war, stating earlier this week that high tariffs between the U.S. and China were not sustainable.
Boeing is one of the largest U.S. exporters and historically sent a quarter of its planes to China, though the share of Chinese airlines in its order backlog now stands at 10% after European rival Airbus increased market share.
Airbus has been in on-off negotiations for at least a year to try to grab a huge order of up to 500 jets, though China usually treads carefully over all major purchase decisions at times of geopolitical uncertainty, industry sources said.
Airbus said it never comments on commercial discussions that may or may not be happening.
Potential alternative markets for Boeing jets include India, Latin America and Southeast Asia but discussions have barely begun because of their complexity and uncertainty over who might blink in the tariff standoff, industry sources said. Air India is seen among potential bidders on behalf of Air India Express.
COMPLEX NEGOTIATIONS
However, experts warned that carrying out the threat to divert jets to other buyers would not involve a simple switch.
Finding new customers after planes have been built “can be a costly endeavour”, industry publication Leeham News said.
Experts say many components, such as cabins, are picked by airlines and switching configurations could cost millions of dollars. Doing so may also create a tangle of contractual commitments and need the co-operation of the original buyer.
For its part, China has urged Washington to abandon the tariffs but its airlines are seen as hungry for new planes to meet demand and stay within domestic aircraft age restrictions.
“This will be extremely complicated. Everyone is flexing muscle but nobody completely has the upper hand,” said a senior aircraft finance industry source who requested anonymity.
Boeing’s public stand follows a threat from tariffs to the aerospace industry’s decade-old duty-free trading status. Senior industry officials say, however, there is no clear evidence of a reported official Chinese government ban on U.S. jets.
The move to repatriate and re-market jets stands in contrast to a build-up seen during an almost five-year import freeze on 737 MAX jets into China and previous trade tensions.
“We’re not going to continue to build aircraft for customers who will not take them,” Ortberg told analysts.
Two jets ferried to China in March for delivery to Xiamen Airlines returned to Boeing in Seattle in the past week.
A third 737 MAX flew from Boeing’s Zhoushan completion centre near Shanghai to the U.S. territory of Guam on Thursday, Flightradar24 data showed. Guam is one of the stops Boeing delivery flights make on the journey across the Pacific.
The third plane was initially built for Air China, according to Aviation Flights Group. The flag carrier did not respond to a request for comment.
Boeing had planned to deliver around 50 new planes to China over the rest of this year, West said. It is studying options for re-marketing 41 that are already built or in production.
(Reporting by Lisa Barrington in Seoul, Tim Hepher in Paris, and Abhijith Ganapavaram, Additional reporting by Katharine Jackson. Editing by Jacqueline Wong, Mark Potter and Gareth Jones)
