This is sequel to civil aviation minister Sharad Yadav's announcement in Parliament last week in the wake of Patna air crash that IA will finalise purchase of aircraft shortly.

The airlines expects to open the financial bids of the two international manufacturers by August-end, after which efforts will be made for financial closure within two months.

IA had earlier floated tender for purchase of aircraft and both the manufacturing giants had bid then. After this exercise, IA also completed the techno-economic evaluation of the aircraft offered by the two companies. Airline sources said the financial bids now floated was among the last of the exercises being undertaken to clinch the deal.

Indian Airlines needs to urgently replace its ageing Boeing 737s as also some of the Airbus series of planes, which had become old and uneconomical.

Simultaneously, the airline also needs to replace some 11 Boeing 737 aircraft under operation by the IA subsidiary Alliance Air. Most of these aircraft are over 20 years old. They were earlier phased out from IA and were accommodated in the newly created Alliance Air, which mostly serves the moffusil routes around the country.

The airline hopes to induct the first of these aircraft by 2001 and the rest in a five-year span. To begin with, the domestic carrier will be replacing by 2002 the 11 B737-200, being run by Alliance Air, and the 11 A300s.

The aircraft evaluation committee had shortlisted, among others, the 96-seater Boeing 717, 101-seater Boeing 737-600, 122-seater Boeing 737-700, 140-seater Boeing 737-800 and 158-seater Boeing 737-900.

From the Airbus stable, the aircraft shortlisted include the 104-seater A318, 122-seater A319, 142-seater A320 and 175-seater A321.

Once decided, this would be the first major order after late Rajiv Gandhi's Congress government purchased 31 Airbus A320 aircraft about ten years ago amid raging controversy.

Both Boeing and Airbus Industrie have been vying with each other to corner orders from the government for a long time. They were earlier in the race for the Medium Capacity Long Range (MCLR) aircraft meant for Air India. The AI plan, however, had to be shelved mid-way on account of lack of resources. Since then, both manufacturers have been eyeing the IA deal.