Airbus A320neo
Prototype of Airbus A320 NEO aircraft. Credit: Gyrostat (Wikimedia, CC-BY-SA 4.0).

Saudi Arabia’s budget airline flyadeal has cancelled a $5.9bn order for 30 Boeing 737 Max aircraft and instead opted for a fleet of Airbus A320 jets.

flyadeal has placed an order for 30 A320 NEO aircraft with an option to further order 20 aircraft from Airbus.

The deal is part of the agreement signed between Saudi Arabian Airlines Corporation and Airbus during the Paris Air Show held last month.

The agreement was signed for a total delivery of 100 aircraft from Airbus.

Deliveries of the aircraft are set to start in 2021.

flyadeal’s latest decision comes in response to two crashes involving Boeing 737 Max jets this year, reported BBC.

Boeing was quoted by Bloomberg as saying: “We understand that flyadeal will not finalise its commitment to the 737 Max at this time given the airline’s schedule requirements.

“We wish the flyadeal team well and hope we can support their fleet and operational needs in the future.”

China and a number of other countries such as Indonesia and Ethiopia have suspended the use of Boeing 737 MAX-8 aircraft, following a deadly crash in Ethiopia in March.

Flying from Addis Ababa to Nairobi, Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET302 crashed minutes after take-off, killing all 157 people on board.

Last October, a Lion Air-operated 737 MAX-8 crashed into the sea shortly after taking off from Jakarta Airport and claimed the lives of all 189 passengers.

Last week, Boeing announced $100m in funding to help families affected by the two crashes.

Since the time of the grounding, Boeing is continuously in the process of fixing the issue to satisfy regulators and bring back the aircraft back to operations.