Airbus receives record plane order


The order, worth 18.4 billion euros, beats last year’s record order for 230 Boeing planes, also from Lion Air.

Lion, now a major airline in Indonesia, started up 13 years ago. The two orders, once fulfilled, would put the airline in the world's top ten by number of aircraft. Lion currently has just 92 Boeing planes, which fly mainly within Indonesia but also to Saudi Arabia.

Lion operates the low-cost aircraft carrier model and holds about a 45 percent market share in Indonesia. Air traffic in this part of the world is forecast to grow at 20 percent a year, while the country's economy is growing at about 6 percent a year.

The planes are all in the A320 family of planes and the first are due for delivery in 2014.