Boeing confirmed on Tuesday that it secured an order for 78 of its Boeing 787 Dreamliners from Saudi Arabia-based airlines Saudi Arabian Airlines and Riyadh Air. The agreement also comes with an option to buy 43 additional airplanes.
According to Reuters, the price of the initial order is valued at around $37 billion. This would make it the fifth most-valued commercial order in history.
Saudi Arabian Airlines, now known as Saudia, is a state-owned airline that has been in business since 1945. According to available data, it currently has 151 planes in its fleet and travels to 101 destinations.
Riyadh Air, on the other hand, is the newly-formed airline and will be owned by Public Investment Fund, the country’s sovereign wealth fund. PIF has been diversifying its portfolio in recent years, establishing golf competition LIV, investing in electric vehicle company Lucid and buying Premier League club Newcastle United.
Riyadh Air intends to expand its business to serve more than 100 destinations by the end of the decade. The company nabbed Tony Douglas, former chief executive officer of Etihad Airways, as its CEO.
“This order for us today [from Boeing] is the kind of first major milestone that shows to everybody the scale of ambition that we’ve got,” Douglas told Yahoo Finance.
After the deal was announced, Boeing shares jumped almost two percent and closed at $207.28 per share on Tuesday. This represents a more than six percent jump in value year-to-date.