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Vijay Mallya's Kingfisher Airlines placed orders to purchase 50 wide-bodied and single-aisle aircraft from the European consortium Airbus Industrie worth billions of dollars.

The deal was signed at the ongoing Paris Airshow by the UB Group Chairman himself and Airbus COO John Leahy on Wednesday, according to an Airbus spokesperson. The agreement is for the purchase of 15 A350-800 XWBs (extended wide-bodied), ten A330-200s, five A340-500s and 20 aircraft from the A320 family, that is A-318s, A-319s, A-320s and A-321s. Kingfisher is the first Indian carrier to have placed orders for the world's largest aircraft, A-380s. It will purchase five of these planes which are expected to be delivered by 2011-12. After signing the deal at the Le Bourget airport, Mallya said his airline's strategy was to open ‘new long haul routes and expand existing ones’. "With the A340-500 and then the A350 XWB, we will be able to offer direct routes between India and the US for example.

The A330 will allow us to expand services to Europe and the A320s will help us meet demand in our home region", he said. Kingfisher is yet to be permitted by the government to operate globally as it has not completed the mandatory five years of domestic operations, though it satisfies the other condition for international operations of having a 20-aircraft fleet.

This signifies better aviation job opportunities and growth of  aircraft maintenance engineering job vacancies.