Aid to China may fly on Boeing jets

Pacific Northwest-based aid agencies aim to piggyback on Boeing's booming sales to China, loading earthquake-relief supplies in new jets being delivered to Chinese airlines.

Managers of Medical Teams International are negotiating to send $470,000 worth of supplies Mercy Corps would help distribute to earthquake victims in China.

A Boeing spokesperson says the aircraft maker has entered similar deals in the past but rarely in urgent response to humanitarian disasters.

Boeing and the relief workers are reviewing 15 aircraft ordered by Chinese airlines, said Barbara Agnew, spokeswoman for Medical Teams International of Portland.

The jets are scheduled for delivery to six Chinese cities, she said.

"None of these destinations are actually hubs that are near the disaster site," Agnew said. "So they're going back to specific airlines and saying, 'Would you be able to take this cargo to a closer hub?"'

The Boeing deal is one of several that aid groups are negotiating as disaster estimates grow in both China and cyclone-hit Myanmar.

Jimmy Chen, co-chairman of the Washington State-Sichuan Province Friendship Association, said his group is negotiating with Shenzhen Airlines to carry aid supplies Chen is trying to get donated, on a flight leaving for China in early June.

Mercy Corps, of Portland, plans to send items ranging from school kits to rubber gloves via DHL International.

The global delivery company plans to fly the supplies for free from Seattle to Bangkok, Thailand, for distribution in Myanmar and perhaps China, also providing warehouse space.

DHL is also working with Mercy Corps on a charter flight to carry pharmaceuticals from the United States to China. "Something like this would be impossible for us to do on our own," said Susan Laarman, a Mercy Corps spokeswoman, saying the charter otherwise could cost as much as $1 million.

In Myanmar, where the government has kept foreign relief workers out of hard-hit areas, Mercy Corps expects to team with Merlin, a British organization already working inside the reclusive country.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon arrived in Myanmar today to persuade the ruling generals to let in foreign aid. He urged the junta Wednesday to focus on saving lives, not on politics, after it refused an American proposal for U.S. warships to deliver relief.

World Vision, which is providing relief in both Myanmar and China, has not been negotiating with domestic airlines or plane manufacturers because its aid supplies have mostly been purchased in-country, said spokeswoman Rachel Wolff.

Doing so costs less, she said. And in Myanmar, the government only recently allowed World Vision to fly in supplies from Singapore, Bangkok and its warehouse in Frankfurt, Germany.

Myanmar is hardly a big aircraft buyer, but China is a giant Boeing customer, which could work in the aid agencies' favor.

Boeing forecasts that China will require 3,400 new airplanes worth about $340 billion over the next two decades.

Additional information from Seattle Times staff reporter Janet I. Tu and The Associated Press.