Saturday, May 7 2005 11:19 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: European aircraft maker Airbus Industry has said it is not hinting at any corruption in the deal between its rival Boeing and Air India on proposed purchase of 50 planes by the State-owned airline but suggested a scrapping of the tender for it and reissue of the same.

Asked if Airbus is hinting at corruption in the deal, Airbus-India Vice President Nigel Harwood told NDTV that "no, not at all...."

He said Airbus was not given an opportunity to display its products while Boeing was.

To a question what Airbus is asking for now, he said "in an ideal world, the idea would be that we would have the tender scrapped and the tender would be rewritten and reissued asking for the A350 and the A380, which are all part of the Airbus family, to be introduced in that tender".

"And at that point, we would do a thorough amount of work with the airlines, ensure the products are represented in true light," Harwood said.

"On the occasion that over the past few months what has happened is we submitted our proposal and at that point we asked for several opportunities to come and represent our products and unfortunately, those opportunities were not given, which is unusual in itself and the fact that we believe that Boeing was given the opportunity...", he said.