China’s biggest airlines have started dividing up a 500-plane mega-order for Airbus SE jets from a deal that Beijing is still looking for an opportune time to announce months after it came together, people familiar with the matter said.

China Southern Airlines Co., Air China Ltd. and China Eastern Airlines Co. each plan to claim about 100 aircraft, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing details that are private. Smaller carriers Xiamen Air Co. and Sichuan Airlines Group Co. are targeting agreements closer to 35, one of the people said.

The order, reported on by Bloomberg News in June, would be among the largest ever for Chinese airlines, which typically order in bulk through the government. It was originally expected to be announced in early July during the China–European Union 50th anniversary meeting in Beijing. However, with grievances over trade and the war in Ukraine casting a shadow over those talks, no transaction was announced, the people said. 

While China and the EU wait for another appropriate occasion, individual Chinese airlines have been in discussions with local procurement authorities to settle their purchase requests and then negotiate with Airbus directly on plane numbers, the people said.

Airbus declined to comment. Representatives for China Southern, Air China, China Eastern and Xiamen Air didn’t respond to requests for comment. Sichuan Airlines couldn’t be reached.

Chinese airlines are eager to secure access to plane deliveries before the end of the decade considering the supply backlog at both Airbus and Boeing Co.

Airbus had told its Chinese customers they risked relinquishing the prized slots if they didn’t sign up soon, one of the people said. The European planemaker has largely sold out of production slots for its most popular single-aisle jet and widebody products through the end of this decade.

With the second-largest air travel market in the world, and plenty of unrealized growth, China needs planes to replace older jets, and fuel both domestic and international expansion.

The magnitude of the mooted deal also shows China’s continued reliance on U.S. and Western industrial technology, despite developing Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China Ltd., or Comac, as a homegrown champion. 

Comac’s marquee C919 jet still faces a slow ramp-up. Although it has won an order for 300 planes from the country’s top three airlines — China Southern, Air China and China Eastern — it’s delivered just 21 of them since December 2022.

The Airbus deal’s finalization would give the European planemaker an edge this year on net planes ordered, as politics and trade dominate commercial agreements. Boeing leads Airbus with 739 orders so far in 2025 versus its 501, aided by large deals influenced by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Airbus has, however, increased its share of sales to China, helped by a final assembly line in Tianjin for its popular A320 family aircraft. The facility is undergoing an expansion that will ultimately see it double in size. 

Airbus has also historically benefited from Boeing’s 737 Max grounding that prevented deliveries into China for years. Chinese carriers haven’t announced a major order for U.S.-made planes since at least 2017.