16 Bi for edit: 20 planes + 16 options is around 440Mi ea. seems they didn't get as large as a discount as I was expecting
Very much so. Common discounts for airframes can be 40-50%. Given the circumstances I'd assume Emirates got somewhere near 50; who knows. But both parties needed this deal and as other comments correctly point out the unusually public manoeuvring has been going on for months.
Of course, no-one in the media has any idea about this very closely guarded commercial information and so they simply go by the list price.
> signed an outline agreement for 20 of the double-deckers with an option to buy 16 more, worth a potential $16 billion at list prices