Emirates Airlines and Airbus have still not come to an agreement on a new order for 36 of Airbus’s giant A380 planes, and Airbus may finally be ready to wind down production of the plane. Forbes, Reuters and other financial news sources say they have been told by insiders that plans are being made.
In ten years of building the plane, which was designed as a competitor for the Boeing 747, only 217 have been delivered, more than half to three Gulf Airlines, and well fewer than 100 live orders remain; no new orders have been booked in over two years.
Emirates is understood to be willing to order only if Airbus can guarantee another ten years of the program, which would provide replacements, parts and expertise. Airbus is only willing to make that commitment if it gets a really big order from Emirates; otherwise, it can’t economically support the line past current orders, many of which are fragile.
While it is still possible a deal could happen, it seems less and less likely. Emirates has another 42 of the planes on order, and it is the only sizable customer at this point. Airlines in general have been switching to more economical planes such as the 777, 787 and A350, and some A380 customers have begun returning planes to leasing companies as the leases expire.
UPDATE: Emirates saves the day for Airbus, January 18
Emirates Airlines has saved the day for Airbus, with an order for 20 more A380s, and an option for 16 more, extending the production life of the huge plane. Airbus says that it will now be able to keep the line going for 10 years, and hopes that in that time the plane will generate more orders.
List price for the plane approaches $500,000,000, but since large orders usually get sizable discounts and since Airbus really, really needed this order, the discounts are likely both quite generous and unlikely to be disclosed.
The A380 varies in size and passenger numbers. Not every A380 has 800 seats. Some have 500 seats while some have 723 seats.But the overall cost of a A380 is $317.2 – 337.5 million (American).
Apparently, Emirates have just signed an agreement to purchase 36 Airbus A380s (20 firm orders plus an option for 16). The total value of the deal is reported to be around $16bn.