Don't talk about martial arts, I'm a war contractor

Chapter 516: Receiving Goods and Arriving at Norwei

Xia Yu’s first destination is Cologne, Germany, which is also the headquarters of Lufthansa.

Due to the suspension of a large number of flights, their current situation can be said to be difficult. The large fleet of 14 Airbus A380s operated in its heyday has overwhelmed the company, and it wants to sell 6 of them to Airbus at a low price.

But Airbus' remaining orders for more than 80 aircraft were all cancelled, and it was even less likely to take over this batch of old A380s.

Lufthansa had no choice but to retire all six of these giant aircraft, and most of the remaining eight were sealed up and will be put into operation again after the aviation industry recovers.

The fate of the retired A380s is basically to be dismantled into parts for use by the A380s that are still in operation. It will be very difficult for Airbus to earn money for maintenance in the future.

This is probably the consequence of not being able to see the future development trend and forcing the project just to bet with Boeing!

Four engines on military aircraft are redundant, but having four engines on civil airliners is going against themselves today. Efficient and economical twin-engine wide-body aircraft are the future.

However, of the more than 380 As that have been delivered, at least half of them will continue to be put into operation after the situation improves. Xia Yu came this time to see if there is any opportunity to pick up a bargain.

As long as the price is cheap enough, what if he buys all six A6s?
Those in good condition will be sealed first, and those in poor condition will be dismantled directly, and the dismantled parts will be provided to large airlines such as Tuhao Airlines in the future.

However, this is not the focus of Xia Yu's purchase. He is targeting the 17 Airbus A340s that Lufthansa is preparing to retire.

This is also a rather embarrassing four-engine product of Airbus. The project laid the foundation for the A380, but if it doesn't work, it won't work, and the market will vote with its feet.

But the A340 has one special feature, that is, its engine is the same as the A330, or you can think of it as a stretched version of the A330. The two aircraft have more than 80% of the same parts.

You should know that the A330 has sold more than 1600 units, making it Airbus's most outstanding product after the A320 series.

If Xia Yu can buy all 17 A340s at a relatively cheap price, he can sell at least the dismantled parts needed for 51 A330s after dismantling them.

Of course, there is also a demand for complete machines.

Not many of these four-engine passenger aircraft were built, but they have a few special users.

For example, there is a certain Persia that has been under sanctions and has only oil at home. It does not have to consider the economy of passenger planes at all and is only worried about the problem of insufficient planes.

In order to buy passenger planes, they particularly like to find small countries as their gloves, allowing them to buy passenger planes, and then park them at third-party airports, fully fueled and airworthy without even shutting down the engines.

Just when the crew members got off the plane to have a cup of coffee, oops, why was my plane taken away by the agents?

With such a serious accident, not only was next month's salary not reduced by a penny, but there was even an extra bonus.

Afterwards, Lao Mei said that I was tricked, but he could control everything and could not stop the agents from "hijacking" the plane.

However, there are factions within the country, so even if Focus Defense wants to do this business, it cannot do it personally. Afika is so big that there are many small countries that want to earn some labor fees.

Sure enough, apart from the A380, other less successful products can also find their own way out. If they are not suitable for a country, the next country will treat them as treasures and rush to get them.

"Mr. Sherlock, I am Carsten, CEO of Lufthansa, welcome to Koch."

Perhaps because of the mask, the CEO's French-German accent was thick and muffled.

"Mr. Karsten, let's speak German. My wife is German."

Xia Yu started to build relationships right from the start.

"That's great. French is really hard to pronounce. When I was a student, I could get the highest score in the written test, but I could only barely pass the oral test."

Karsten spoke back to German.

"It's okay to say you're used to it. Let's take a look at the plane first?"

Xia Yu suggested.

His time is very tight, he can only stay in Europe for a week at most, so he can't take more than four days to complete the Lufthansa business.

"this way please!"

Karsten also likes this kind of decisiveness, but at the same time he also hopes that the other party will not lower the price too much.

They have already suffered losses to the point where they need government funding to tide them over, and they really need to recover funds by reducing the burden on their fleet.

For example, Southwest Airlines of Magnesium acted decisively and sold 20 Boeing 737s and 737MAXs in a package, recovering million yuan in one go. It then used the money to lease the passenger planes it sold, successfully resolving the crisis.

But their planes are very new and can still be sold at a good price. Their Airbus A340 is just over years old and has no such problems. The unit price is only over million euros.

As the aviation industry is in an overall recession now, a second-hand A340 may not be much more expensive than a second-hand F-16C/D, especially since the other party is a major customer and has the capacity to purchase all 17 aircraft.

Boarding the A340-300 passenger plane with the word "Lufthansa" painted on it, Xia Yu was using the system to check its condition.

Lufthansa also has more than a dozen A340-600s that were manufactured after the millennium. They are definitely in newer condition, but also more expensive.

Xia Yu chatted with the other party and it seemed that he planned to retire after 28 years.

如果他能拿下这17架A340-300，也就拥有了那些A340-600未来的优先购买权。

This is a good thing for Xia Yu. With the positioning of concentrated fire defense equipment, the A320 series is like the BTR-82S sold by their company, which is purely used to increase sales.

The A330 and A340 are the weasel S3 and S30. They may not sell as many units, but they have a higher profit margin per unit.

"Has your company ever thought of converting them into cargo aircraft?"

After looking at several A340-300s, Xia Yu asked Carsten this question.

In the civil aviation industry, many passenger planes that are 20 years old will be converted into cargo planes and operate for another 10 years.

"If there hadn't been this black swan (also called gray rhino) event, we might have tried such an operation. Now what's more important is survival."

Karsten said without much thought.

"Jihuo Air Transport Company is doing pretty good business. Three An-3s have been flying around the world recently."

During the period of fighting against the Ebola virus, Xia Yu also repaired the Ruslan zombie aircraft from Libya to an airworthy state and added it to the company's An-124 fleet.

The people of Tungkolan who own the An-225 have better business. After all, time is life, and they can transport more supplies.

The museum's business was temporarily sluggish, but it unexpectedly boosted the airline company's business.

He used to feel bad when he had to pay the hundreds of thousands of euros per hour freight for a single machine, but now it's his turn to collect the money, and he feels so relieved.

"We can't compare with you. You are a special transport company, and Lufthansa's business is mainly passenger transport."

Lao Ka waved his hands quickly.

Their cargo business is just a side job, and it is very troublesome to temporarily convert a passenger plane into a cargo plane, as it is not easy to load and unload cargo in both the cargo hold and the passenger cabin.

The suitcase can still be thrown around. Try throwing the standard items that have been packed.

In two days, Xia Yu inspected all 17 A340-300s. It can be said that he knows the conditions of these aircraft better than Lufthansa.

"The 13 aircraft are relatively old and have poor economic efficiency. They are the kind that lose money when they are operated. I can only offer them a unit price of 800 million euros."

Finally, they came to the point of price, and Xia Yu came up with a sharp bargaining chip. "Hey, Mr. Sherlock, this price is too low. Even if we dismantle it directly, the profit will be more than 1000 million euros."

Karsten said with some embarrassment.

The price of an aircraft that was priced at 2.38 million yuan back then is now only quoted at a fraction of that price when it is sold second-hand.

This is much higher than the depreciation rate of fighter jets, but a second-hand Fighting Falcon has only flown for five or six thousand hours, while a second-hand A340 starts at fifty or sixty thousand.

"Yes, but dismantling it also costs money. I invested a lot of money in the factory and labor. We can't lose money, right?"

Xia Yu spread his hands to indicate that we are also in a difficult situation.

"How about this, we'll lower the price to 13 million for these 850 planes, and 4 million for the 1000 planes in good condition?"

He quoted again.

这样17架空客A340-300的总价就是1.505亿欧元了，只比汉莎打包1.6亿的心理价位少了不到一千万。

"Then there are the six Airbus A6s. If your company is willing to sell them, we are willing to take them all."

Xia Yu said this while looking out the window. There were only three A3s there, and the remaining three were still in China, but this would not affect their transaction.

The protagonists in novels about super-rich people basically have an Airbus A380 or a Boeing 747. As a super-rich person in the PMC world, an Il-76MF is enough for him.

The purpose of buying these four-engine wide-body aircraft is really just to refurbish and resell them or to dismantle them and sell their spare parts.

The A4.4 cost US$380 million each at the time. If Lufthansa wanted to buy six of them in a package, what price could it offer?

"We think 2 million euros is a more appropriate figure for six A6s."

"It's too expensive. There are many airlines selling A380s. We have more than one option, Lufthansa. There is a package order of five aircraft for only $5 million. Their average age is less than 1.5 years, and their flight hours are even lower than the average."

Xia Yu started to lower the price.

Old Ka knew which five aircraft he was talking about. Their six old A5s are really not as competitive as others.

After so many years of operation, 2 million euros is indeed too expensive.

“我们让步到1.495亿欧，17＋6这23架客机的总价为3亿欧元怎么样？”

An emergency meeting of senior management was convened that evening. On the morning of the third day, Carsten finally gave Xia Yu a satisfactory price.

A total of 23 four-engine aircraft can fill up half of the civil aviation area of ​​the aircraft graveyard. His 3 million yuan was well spent.

"Okay, shall we sign the contract today?"

Xia Yu agreed and his team of lawyers were on standby. After the total price was finalized, they negotiated with Lufthansa's legal department on the details of the terms and conditions. In the afternoon, they came up with a contract that satisfied both parties.

After leaving his name in the signature area and paying a deposit of 9000 million euros, the four A4-340s in better condition will fly to Mary within three days, that is, before Xia Yu returns to China.

His employees will seal up the four aircraft for subsequent maintenance and sale.

Xia Yu does business in both complete machines and individual parts, but his focus is still on disassembled parts that cannot be traced and counted once they are disassembled.

By grinding off the serial number, he can sell three or even five copies of each item.

An accident accelerated Xia Yu's stockpiling efficiency of dismantled parts, and the purchase cost was also effectively reduced.

What is this called?

Yes, if the east is dark, the west will be bright. I will let the setting sun dry up my sorrow...

With a great harvest, Xia Yu boarded the Sherlock, and Lao Qian took off and flew towards Northern Europe.

Soon, they landed in Oslo, the capital of Norway.

Wolverine Kohler is half Norwegian. Apart from that, Xia Yu's impression of this place is that it took the German army two months to take over Norway during World War II, unlike a certain place which fell in 4 hours.

Such a small European country, their air force was once equipped with 64 F-16A/Bs. After joining the F-35 project, it ordered 13 fat electric aircraft from Lao Mei in 52.

Since the first batch of F-19A became combat-ready in 35, the Norwegian Air Force has begun to retire a large number of old fighting falcons, even though they are all mid-term upgraded F-16AM/BM.

All I can say is that money makes one willful. Of course, this batch of retired and idle old fighting falcons has attracted the attention of many countries.

According to the information Xia Yu learned, Romania in Eastern Europe is very eager to take over the next batch and replace its own Soviet fighter jets with NATO fighter jets to retire them.

But there are more than 70 of them in total! They said they would all be returned before 22 years, so if you act first, everyone can buy one.

If you can't buy it, you can still buy it from other countries. Not only Norway has F-16 in Northern Europe, but Malaysia and Heilongjiang also bought a lot back then.

Among them, the former coachman has a grudge against Russia. If he finds an opportunity, he may not ask for any money and directly donate fighter jets.

This is how modern society works. As long as a small country is determined, it can cause trouble for a big country even if it does not participate in the war.

However, in Xia Yu's eyes, these old F-16AM/BMs are only worth converting into unmanned target drones for single-seat ones and converting them into civilian use for double-seat ones.

Without upgrading avionics, there is no combat effectiveness at all.

To upgrade to the F-16V standard, the AN/APG-83 active phased array radar, upgraded mission computers, and sniper pods must be installed...

The starting cost of such a set of equipment is 16 to 16 million US dollars, which can buy five or six F-AM/BM aircraft. So why not use the F-C/D aircraft for upgrade?

As for why Xia Yu used F-16AM/BM when modifying the Red Fighting Falcon, it was because he had a system to prepare the aircraft, but others did not.

At this point, only the F-16C/D airframes will be serviced, so there are only two options for the old batches of Fighting Falcons.

After not staying in the capital for long, the Sherlock took off again and headed for Bodø Air Force Base, 850 kilometers away from Oslo.

There was also a royal plane traveling with them. Norway still retains its royal family, but most of the royal families in Europe need to join the army.

Being able to drive is just a minimum requirement. It would be best if you can also fly a helicopter, a fighter jet, etc.

Prince Harry, who often gets his father's gold coins, drove an Apache in Afghanistan and killed 25 Tatars. His uncle Andrew also drove a Poseidon and participated in the Falklands War.

Norway does not fight wars, and the royal family members are more just experiencing it.

For example, Princess Ingrid Alexandra, who is traveling with Xia Yu this time, will go to Boulder Air Force Base to experience the F-16BM.

If you really want to know why I don’t try the F-35, it’s probably because all three models of F- are single-seat aircraft!
Xia Yu can experience the F-15D, F/A-18D, and Rafale-B through his connections, but he really cannot experience the F-D or the Raptor, even though he can operate them right away.

In less than an hour, Sherlock landed on the runway of Boulder Air Force Base and met the princess who had just turned 16.

Honestly, it feels like I’m 26 years old.

Xia Yu chatted with the other party for a few words and then suggested going to the hangar where the Fighting Falcon was stored to take a look.

(End of this chapter)