KUWAIT CITY: Kuwait Airways said it wants to buy five used Airbus A330 planes from India’s Jet Airways, adding that this would not affect a previously-announced plan to buy new Airbus jets.

Airbus, which is owned by aerospace and defense group, will act as mediator in the deal with Jet Airways even though the five-year-old planes are owned by the Indian carrier, Kuwait Airways chief executive Sami Al-Nisf said.

At a news conference, he declined to say how much such an agreement would be worth but said his company is continuing to work on buying new jets from Airbus in a deal first announced in May.

Kuwaiti media reported in September that the Gulf carrier could delay the plan to buy 25 new aircraft from Airbus to prioritize leasing planes instead.

Kuwait Airways signed an initial agreement with Airbus in May to buy 15 A320neo narrow-body jets and 10 of Airbus’s new A350-900 XWB.

Al-Nisf said Kuwait Airways would start receiving the new Airbus planes from 2018 to 2020.

Kuwait Airways is expected to pay around 850 million Kuwaiti dinars ($3 billion) for the 25 new planes, a source with knowledge of the negotiations said in May. Such an order would be worth around $4.38 billion at list prices, but aircraft are usually sold at a discount.

Kuwait Airways has said it wants to take 11 jets from its old fleet of 17 out of service. The planes’ average age in the old fleet is 18 years.