Lockheed Martin Corp. is in talks with seven customers outside the U.S. to sell 35 C130J transport planes and will ramp up its production to meet demand, an executive told Dow Jones on Tuesday.
"We are ramping up the production right now. We plan to produce 25 planes this year from 16 last year. Demand is strong," said Jack Crisler, Lockheed Martin's director of business development, international air mobility programs.
Lockheed is one of the exhibitors at the Singapore Airshow.
He said the potential customers for the 35 planes are from the Middle East and North Africa, while one was from Asia.
He said Lockheed has an order backlog of 95 C13J's and production would be boosted to 36 planes per year in 2011.
The C130J with a list price of around $75 million commands a near monopoly in the military air transport sector with a total of 282 planes sold to air forces around the world. Its dominance could be threatened if Airbus manages to start producing the A400M plane which has been plagued by three years of delays and cost overruns.
"The C130J will do very well even with the A400M in the market," Crisler said.
"There are a lot of airlift requirements and our plane has had a perfect record in missions. It's been in production for 10 years, it has been tested and commands a very competitive price."
There are 180 A400Ms on order, but the plane, which is bigger than the C130J, has run into financial trouble and Airbus has asked European governments for about $6 billion to keep the program going, a person familiar with the situation told Dow Jones.
The list price for an A400M is around $250 million.