Transaero to buy 4 A380 Airbus planes in $1.5 bln deal

Russia's Transaero, one of the country's largest airlines, has signed a deal with the European Airbus consortium to buy four A380 airliners worth around $1.5 billion, Transaero General Director Olga Pleshakova said on Friday. The deal will make Transaero the first Russian airline to operate the aircraft, the largest passenger plane in service, Airbus Executive Vice President for Customer Affairs Christopher Buckley said. "Deliveries will start from the fourth quarter of 2015," Pleshakova said. The company also plans to buy Boeing 747-8 in addition to the Airbus A380s, Pleshakova has said. The new planes will replace the company's current fleet of Boeing 747-300s by 2015-2020. The A380 will meet the needs of the growing Russian market, Buckley said, with an anticipated annual passenger flow growth in the region of 5.6 percent on average in the next 20 years.